Christmas Decor Goes to the Birds – Part 1

I’ll take my Christmas spirit where I can find it. Today, at a chilly 14°F, I finished decorating my “real” Christmas tree. 🎄

But first, let’s go back to the beginning of this project. Warning; this is going to be a bit of a ramble … just sorting my feelings out so I can move forward..

If you are anything like me, you’ve wondered at some point, “How am I going to make it through the holidays this year?”

The weight of holiday blues settled around my shoulders just after Thanksgiving. It was a very quiet Thanksgiving, which channeled my thoughts inward. Life is so different right now.

After several days of moping around the house (very literally), I decided I was going to have to be proactive for the sake of my own mental health.

Like many, I’ve been staving off low-level depression for months. The pandemic has the whole world off-kilter and I could feel my own balance tilting. Rather than give in without a fight, I figured I’d at least go down swinging.

So, what to do? How does one create “Christmas spirit”? Mine needed a boost.

I’ve been going a bit stir-crazy staying home for what seems like forever, with exactly the same view outside my windows.

Then I’d feel guilty for not appreciating the beauty around me. I thought, maybe I just needed to enhance the “picture” I had to work with.

I started toying with an idea several weeks ago, when my spirits were lowest, but being a little down, I wasn’t making much progress.

Since I can’t really get out for much more than essentials, I needed to change something, anything, about where I was. My “spinning corner” overlooks our back deck; snow covered and empty except for an old, mostly abandoned bird feeder.

The sight of that old bird feeder, empty because I’d simply been too busy the past few winters to take time to fill and maintain it, brought back memories of previous winters. Oh, how different they were.

Admittedly, the older I’ve gotten, the harder it’s been to keep up with all the activities I wanted to pursue and keep up at home. But I was living by the motto, “You don’t quit playing because you get old, you get old because you quit playing!”

Between teaching K9 Nose Work classes on Sundays, setting up and supervising several hours of nose work practices (with sometimes 16-18 teams attending) on Tuesday evenings, barn Hunt practice for Ronni on Saturday, and usually at least 1-2 other dog-related activities throughout the week (Ronni has been learning Rally and I’d hoped to get her back into Agility classes until covid hit) … my weeks were busy.

A lot of my time at home was spent thinking about and preparing for upcoming classes, planning set-ups for the next nose work practice and, of course, practicing with Baxter & Ronni for whatever sports class they we’re currently attending.

Shopping, doctor appointments, house work (admittedly minimal😉), occasional lunches with friends and more filled any spare time. Oh, how I took it all for granted.

So, there I sat at my wheel, spinning without much attention, staring at that empty bird feeder with my mind lost in the past and feeling sorry for myself.

Wheels slowly started turning as one of our local band of chickadees paused briefly on the deck rail before heading on its merry way. I envied it it’s freedom.

I paused in my spinning, frowning at a thought. The trees seemed particularly quiet lately. Where were all the birds? Could I get them to come back?

The seeds (pun intended) of a “Christmas Spirit” project were sewn. If you read my last blog, you may have noticed a small preview of where this is heading.

Yes, there’s more. Watch for Part Two, coming soon.