I've decorated the planters that sit out on either side of our front steps. When we moved into our house, Mike couldn't wait to have the classic black, wrought iron planters out front. I bought them for his birthday that October and we brought them back from Toronto over Thanksgiving. Surely they were also available in Kingston. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we did that. Our first year, we stuck in extra branches that were trimmed from our Christmas tree. It was a make-do year, but we convinced ourselves it looked okay once covered in snow! Last year, we used birch branches and a few more boughs. It was a mild day and Lucas helped me. We had fun. Our neighbour, Colleen, was working on hers too, so we visited from across the street, along with the poking and prodding. I was distracted by my focus on the task.
The day I filled our planters this year (Lucas at school, Emily napping), I was thinking of Mike the whole time. I waited a bit later into December, so had to thaw the soil with some hot water. It worked surprisingly well, since the soil was only frozen part way down into the planter. The planters are something Mike would have fussed over, proudly. So, I fussed a bit too, trying to get them somewhat symmetrical, balancing the different types of branches while trying to keep them looking pretty natural. I added a dried hydrangea flower from the backyard and some dried sedum. Lucas gave his approval when he got home from school, so we added three hydrangea on each side. A few days later we added some red berries that our neighbour dropped off. Lucas, the resident 'style-demon' (Mike-ism) likes how they look.
Tomorrow is Christmas day.
We'll be thinking of you, Mike, throughout the chaos. You'd be rolling your eyes at the mess, but smiling too. You'd be happy to see Lucas and Emily having a ball-- happy to see them indulged a bit. You were good at that and I'll try, with Santa's help, to keep it up.
I'll be up late tonight wrapping, organizing, and listening for Santa.
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