Going Angel Zen for 2011

By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — There are angel wings on my living room wall and halos on my lampshades.
And now I see three angels every time I hit the garage door remote.
There was just one, until I undecked my halls last week, a remarkably easy task this year.
Since I created the newsroom tree and helped decorate a large tree for the Sun-News lobby, I decided I’d given at the office this year and that would be sufficient.
My plans for a holiday open house never got off the ground, somehow, and when work schedules didn’t allow family gatherings, I figured I’d curb my chronic holiday decor enthusiasms and just skip it this year. I flung a pre-decorated wreath on the front door and called it a day, especially after I took a gander around the house and realized it looks like it’s decorated for the holidays year-round anyway.
I have a Charlie Carrillo-carved nativity scene hanging by the fireplace. My collections of festive crosses and bultos of assorted saints and images of Our Lady of Guadalupe adorn my living room, home office, guest rooms and both baths.
And yes, I do have that outsized pair of angel wings hanging on my living room year-round now, because they don’t fit in my Full-Tilt Fiesta Season all-purpose costume closet.
It was all part of my resolution to go Zen and simplify my life. I’ve decided to wear angel outfits for all occasions requiring costumes and invest only in new halos, which don’t take up much space and look rather ethereal and lovely topping my lamp shades when they aren’t in use.
This was the year I’d planned to thoroughly clean out all my costume and gift closets and pack up everything not likely to be used by, or given to, loved ones and donate it all to a worthy charity.
I’ve also considered skipping my 2011 Christmas shopping season, which usually starts about now with the best of the post-season sales and ends by July. Wouldn’t everyone really have cash, anyway?
Well, maybe not.
A lot of us get the blues this time of year and good books, warm scarves, entertaining CDs and DVDs and sweet and silly little gifts do a lot to cheer us up through the pre- and post-holiday doldrums.
And when I went to put away the few Christmas decorations I couldn’t resist, I came across the next seasonal stash of decor items for Valentine’s Day, one of my favorite holidays.
I’ve decided some compromises and transitional strategies are in order, before I really try to go full-tilt cold turkey Zen.
I’m going to recycle some of my Christmas package boxes and pack up some of those long-stored spectacular holiday tableaus and lights so they’ll be all ready to send to Alexander the Great and my son and daughter-in-law next year. I figure they’re still a few decades from simple Zen longings.
And I’m going to hover awhile and keep moving toward my simplify-simplify goals with a Zen angel decor strategy.
I’ll fling a heart ornament or two on the living room wings and think cupid.
I’ll bend the halos into heart shapes for Valentine’s Day and transform them into shamrock configurations for St. Patrick’s Day.
The two wrought-iron angels an amiga gave me for Christmas wouldn’t fit into any of my Christmas storage boxes, so they are now ornamenting the shelves over my garage back door entrance, along with a large lighted glass angel, another gift too big for the closets. Maybe I’ll move them to the patio after the spring windy season is over.
In the meantime, they’re an inspiring sight when I hit the garage door remote and pull into home base after a long day.

S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.