It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It occurred to me yesterday that while it is completely undeniable that the holiday season is upon us, for many people the holidays do not truly begin for them until certain things happen. For every person it is something a little different. I am sure you have all heard laments about this from someone in your lives.

I have been hearing for weeks now that people are unable to get into the holiday spirit due to the unseasonably warm weather Texas has been experiencing. I have also heard people say they just don't feel it is the season until certain foods, music, shows, or events happen. For some people it isn't until that certain decoration is pulled out of the attic and put on display.

Today I decided to share with you something that make it the holiday season for me. As some of you know I am a bit of a Grinch when it comes to most any holiday. I don't mind other people enjoying them and going insane decorating for them, but I don't have that urge.

We do minimal decorations in my house. The tree won't go up until the Friday before Christmas. There are no outdoor lights. I suppose a lot of this has to do with laziness. I am the one who has to decorate and take the decorations down, so until someone else (*cough-husbeast-cough*) wants to actually pitch in, minimal is the word.

Still it doesn't mean I don't have things I love to see and do. It also doesn't mean that every year I don't add at least one tasteful holiday decoration to the decor I do put out.

Anyways. Here is a thing that to me make it truly the holidays.

Probably one of the surest signs for me that it is the holidays, and has been since I was a tiny girl, is the appearance of the Christmas castle.

The castle is a bunch of old cracker boxes, toilet paper rolls, oatmeal containers, and any other object we could find to make a new segment. Each piece is carefully wrapped in festive colored, mostly metallic, wrapping paper. After it is wrapped we would then decorate the piece with bits of ribbon, trim, cutouts of doors, windows, crosses, or whatever seemed festive.

Once all of the pieces were decorated you had yourself a bunch of castle segments. All that was left to do was put them together as we liked to create our holiday castle. It could look different every year, and since we added at least one new piece each year, it never stopped being new.

This is a picture of my mothers castle. My grandmother had one as we were growing up that we added to yearly, and I know my Aunt has one as well. In my mind it wasn't the Christmas season until the castle had been assembled.

Mom snapped this picture last night and sent it to me. It really made the fact that it is indeed the holidays sink in for me.

Whether it stays cold or gets hot again, whether there is the right sort of holiday themed food in the stores, whether the radio blares Christmas music or not, as long as I know the castle is up, it is Christmas time. What is it in your world that makes you know that the holiday's are upon you?