Christmas in July: selecting a theme

Today is the last day of July. It is hot here in Oklahoma.
Maybe that is why I am thinking about the holidays.
Maybe it is because it is my grandbaby's birthday and she is four states away. I was thinking that hers is the last birthday celebration until after New Year's in our immediate family.
Maybe it is because we have been in celebration mode for a cool minute.
Maybe it is because there are "Christmas in July" sales in the paper and on the radio.
Maybe I should be ashamed to be thinking about (and blogging about) the holidays for the second time this year.
Whatever the reason, I just love the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's so much that I think about them even when they are months away. I have been thinking of Christmas so much that I have already decided upon a theme for this year.
The theme will be (drum roll, please!) Storybook Christmas!
A few years ago. my sister's house was on the tour of homes. Her first grandchild's birth was just a few month's away and the decorator that helped her came up with the idea using nursery items throughout the house. One tree even had old storybooks opened on branches to colorful vintage illustrations.  I loaned silver rattles and baby china to the cause. The theme was just nostalgic enough to capture my imagination.
I went home and promptly hung snowflake ornaments I had collected for years over the snow village on my mantle to resemble a baby's mobile, since my own first grandbaby was just a few months old.
I also hung angel ornaments at various heights in the breakfast room windows over the nativity in a nod to the tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and also as something of a mobile display I could show to the baby whenever she came to visit.
That's as far as I went to embrace this theme. This year, though, that all came back to me as I considered that same baby starting first grade this year.
Last year, in kindergarten, she worked with alphabet and numbers since she was learned to use both to read and add and subtract. She also loves reading storybooks... so I am thinking...what about little vignettes set up to mimic what is on the pages of her favorite books.
Sounds like a lot of work, yes?
Ah, but I have planned so far ahead I have time.
The planning ahead helps with the collection of items to use in wreaths and on mantles. And on the tree.
I've used themes before:
one year we decorated around my baby daughter's snowbabies.
Another year we used snowmen and women.
Some day, I plan to use a nutcracker theme.
For this year, though, I am going for the storybook theme.
I just hope there is a happy ending.