Decorate for Fall- The season’s arrived!
Crunching leaves, chilled air and the incessant need to make everything pumpkin flavored. Oh, and the need to clean everything.
Yes, fall had indeed arrived at the Haddick-Ariga-Brooks household. And with that need, came the need to decorate.
It had been about six-to-ten months since he and Jonny had taken in the sweet, adorable Little known as Vincent Brooks from the Heritage Center for Adoption and said adorable Little was adjusting quite nicely. It took a bit for him to get adjusted to their house- he just wasn’t used to accommodations that weren’t insultingly small, incredibly bleak and drab and constantly infested with ants. Moving from those accommodations to a 3 story house with his own bedroom, playroom and potential homeschool room was a bit of a stretch to get used to.
Thankfully, Orlando stayed at home to keep Vincent company while Jonny, his husband, worked during the day at a car-dealership, from 7 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. That led back to today, it was up to Vincent and his Dada Orlando to decorate the place to the nines, in order to surprise the car-dealer. Now normally, they didn’t like to decorate all that much, but now things were special since Vincent had come to live with them.
That wasn’t to say that they were going to go all out with bright oranges and blacks. No, their decorating style was calm and cozy. Blues, greens, natural tones, a splash of black and white plaid maybe. Nor was Orlando planning to shell out a shitton of money. Most of their decor will be coming from Target’s dollar-spot, Meijer, or Michaels-with a coupon. What could he say, he was a cheapskate. A festive cheapskate.
“Alright Vinny, let’s start outside.” Orlando kissed his cheek, picking up the overall clad ravenette, “We’re not gonna do too much cuz it’s cold out, but we are gonna make it so we have a fighting chance with the festive bastards that are our neighbors? You ready?”
“Ye!” V0incent replied, holding onto his Dada’s shirt and his beloved sheep plushie, Sheepy. Sheepy was the name they used for the plushie day to day, but honestly, Orlando had forgotten the fancy name that Jonny had given the plushie for when Vincent wanted to host tea parties.
Truth be told, they didn’t really decorate the porch due to Jonny’s disgust of ants and other creepy critters, but it was autumn, so that was going to happen whether or not he liked it. So to keep them both happy, Orlando just had Vincent sweep off the porch while he hung up a new wreath- an adorable branched one with a little sheep wearing a black and white plaid scarf. “All done sweeping?”
“Uh-huh! What now?” Vincent asked.
“Well now, we gotta lay down some mats so we don’t track mud in the house. You know how much Papa hates it when we track mud in the house.” Orlando said, rolling up the old mat to get thrown out. One combination of a black plaid rug from amazon and a festive doormat later, they were back in the house. Just in time too, as it had begun raining.
The rain was a good moodsetter, but with the addition of a Bath and Body Works candle and an amazing playlist made it even better. With a candle of White Balsam and Vanilla burning, and two root beers to sip on, one in the can and one in a sippy cup, they began to work on the entryway. The shoes needed to be decluttered and recategorized since they weren’t wearing flip flops, crocs or sandals anytime soon. Once that was done, it was time to handle the small bit of the entryway where Orlando kept his hats and Jonny kept his fashionable backpacks.
Taking everything down was the easy part, and Vincent was eager to help, putting all of his Dada’s hats on the couch in the other room and his Papa’s backpacks on the big chair where they read stories for the time being. After wiping down the area with a clorox wipe, he exchanged the pre-existing hooks for a new set that had an additional hook. With this in place, Orlando hung up his hat, Vincent’s hufflepuff scarf and a fashionable marigold yellow backpack that belonged to Jonny.
With the entryway almost done, all that was left was to clean a small ikea dresser that acted as their entry-way table that stored their keys and other miscellaneous belongings. After clearing the table, Orlando sprayed down the dresser with a bottle of Method All Purpose cleaner in the scent Honeycrisp apple and Vincent wiped it up.
“All done!” Vincent smiled, “Now we decorate?”
“Yep, now we make it look all pretty. Gotta surprise Papa, remember?” Orlando ruffled his hair. Plenty of battery-operated candles, tiny plastic, fabric and wooden pumpkins later, and it was looking adorably festive.
It was about 12:50 when they started on the living room, and the first place they focused on was the fake fireplace that was really more for setting the mood of the living room as a cozy space and warmth than any actual purpose as a console to set video game systems on or in. Nevertheless they did, and it was organized for the most part, usually. Usually being the key word. Since Vincent’s arrival, it had become a bit more messy and they definitely needed to at least wipe it down first and put away all the dvds before even thinking of decorating it.
Once that was cleaned up, Orlando set Vincent up with the task of rolling out a burlap table-runner and after it was rolled out, they set several battery operated candles, pumpkins and an autumn garland all across the mantle of the fireplace, and then hung another garland cross the fireplace that read ‘GATHER’
Next to tackle the rest of the living room and the coffee table. The dark grey couch needed it’s cushions cleaned and to be vacuumed, the decorations and candle on the coffee table didn’t fit for the time being and the decorative cushions which were fine for summer, now didn’t fit the atmosphere that fall brought. So a good 20 minutes later, they had a clean couch that was decorated with both yellow pillows and blue gingham pillows, a cozy marigold yellow knit throw blanket, and one very hungry Vincent who wanted lunch.
After a quick lunch of chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese, they finished up the living room by cleaning and redecorating the coffee table with a gray gingham table-runner, a few battery-operated candles and a beautifully rustic metal tray that Vincent was happy to help decorate with some of his not-all that played with toys, including an adorable sock-monkey. He was such a good helper.
With the kitchen needing to be freshly cleaned after they had their lunch, it was the perfect opportunity to zhoosh it up a bit and make it more festive while still being functional. Wiping down the counters, the fridge and doing the dishes in the sink was the first step. Vincent liked to help by wiping things down and putting away the clean dishes, stepping on his cute little stool.
Once the dishes were done, they dressed up the breakfast table with a cute little blue mat and put a cake stand atop it, but instead of cake, it was decorated with a festive garland and a large ceramic pumpkin. In a corner where the toaster would go on any other morning now also sat a flat light up pumpkin, a tall suede pumpkin and another bath and bodyworks candle. A few festive kitchen towels later, and the stove was even festive. Now all that was left to do was the dining room and the area that was Orlando’s office/the homeschool room, because Vincent was on a program that made him stay home three days a week and go to a school the other two.
Starting with the dining room, it was partially decorated when Orlando had gotten bored the previous week so there wasn’t too much to do. So after doing a quick wipe down, all that was really needed was to exchange the table runner for a festive one, give a quick wash to the lazy Susan situated at the center and start decorating said lazy susan with a few more candles and a bucket filled with candies, since they liked to keep some out. Of course, with Vincent around, they just used the types of candy that Vincent wouldn’t like as much, which meant it was filled with Jonny’s favorite caramels.
The final area of the house was the formal sitting room, which had been turned into a homeschool room/ Orlando’s office ages ago. The rainbow colors of Vincent’s area were turned down just a tad for more neutral blues and browns, though he didn’t mind and actually liked them better, which made Orlando wonder if he should keep the setup actually. Vincent very adorably set up ‘Sheepy’s family’ in a corner of the room, which was a Dada sheep and a Papa sheep, though he kept Sheepy with him for the simple fact that wasn’t where she goes, according to him in all of his adorable toddler wisdom.
With the downstairs all set up for fall, Orlando and Vincent fell asleep upstairs, at that crisp three in the afternoon.
Later that evening, Jonny arrived home, suitably tired, but came bearing pizza. He sighed and rubbed his face a bit, it had been a long day. Just dealing with the public left him drained.
So he was pretty surprised at seeing the house decorated, he blinked a bit. Was this all done today? He slid off his shoes and went over and set the pizza on the table. Heading over to the living room, thinking that Orlando and Vincent should still be here.
Indeed they were, waiting for him. Vincent was still in his playclothes, demanding that he stay in them for his Papa because he wanted his Papa to give him his evening bath. “Papa! We decorate!”
Orlando seemed exhausted, sitting on the couch with a beer and the television playing Corpse Bride. Seems they were already in the underworld, because the lyrics to ‘Remains Of The Day’ blasted through the speaker. “Remind me why we don’t clean as often as we should? At least, in the harder to reach places?”
“Because they’re harder to reach?” Jonny raised an eyebrow, before looking to Vincent and smiling. “You did, I could see all the work you two did.” He picked up Vincent, kissing his cheek.
Vincent squealed happily, “We decorate. Sheepy didn’t help much. She just sat and looked pretty.”-
“Well that’s what she does best.” Jonny rubbed his back, “I brought home some pizza.”
Vincent looked at him, “I want pizza.”
“You can have pizza.” He told him, “do you want me to get you a plate?” His knees were a bit sore from standing, but it’s fine.
“Mhm!” He nodded, “Can we bake cookies after pizza?”
“Well I think Dada has plans for that one.” He smiled, going over and getting some plates for the three of them.
Vincent looked at Orlando, who only chuckled and wrapped his arms around Jonny’s waist, “Love you guys.”
“Love you too, Dada!”
Pizza was had and needless to say, all was merry and festive, even if Vincent did not get his cookies.