Christmas decorating

Our Christmas decor is contained 10.5 months of the year in the corner of the attic carefully packed into 8 Rubbermaid totes & 3 large boxes which are all guarded day & night by 2 reindeer & a flamingo in a Santa hat. If you think that's excessive, please visit my mother's home. 

I love Christmas. I love the time spent with family. I love the feelings of joy this time of year brings. I love the food. I love the decorations. I love it all. It makes me warm & tingly. Sometimes circumstances make it a little harder to get into the spirit. The loss of loved ones, missing those who can't spend the holidays with us, finances...there are different stressors for everyone & everyone has something that is making their life less than perfect. I do my very best to count my blessings & keep my Christmas spirit WAY UP! Like I'm in a holiday movie & Santa is depending on it.

OK, if you know me, you know I can only sing loud if the radio is louder...I do sing along to all the Christmas songs...with the radio up loud!

So every year I'm waiting to eat my turkey dinner on Thanksgiving because I f**king love turkey & Thanksgiving marks the date that it is socially acceptable to start decorating for Christmas. I can't wait to risk my life pulling those crates out of the attic & unwrapping each carefully wrapped & stored precious decoration. I'd say it is like Christmas, but I'm Christmas decorating so it's literally Christmas... 

This year I was responsible & called in back up to get all the crates down, same back up as last year. Thanks Tracy! You are one strong woman!! Then I started opening up crates & making a huge mess which is still not cleaned up. I'm working on it, OK! 

I decorated in phases. 

Phase 1: Everything I Can Get Done Before Tay Gets Here Dec. 5th. 

Phase 2: Getting the Tree & Everything I Can Get Done While Tay Is Here. 

Phase 3: Get The Outside Lights Done While Tay Is Here (This required a super hero's help & the outside lights were up on the house the night before we took Tay to the airport.)

Phase 4: Finish Decorating The House, Clean Up Mess, Finish Outside Lights.

Phase 1 & 2 complete.

Phase 4 is a work in progress. More decorating has been done. Some cleaning has been done. My house is not however what I would refer to as "guest ready" by any stretch. It is not dirty, but it is cluttered & stacked with empty boxes, crates & piles of packing materials. So we can only allow in the people who truly love us & won't judge this display. I really tried to capture the best angles for those pics...but if you look closely you might see a Dyson cord travelling under the tree. I told you I'm working on it folks!

 Tonight I attempted to finish the outside lights because I needed a boost that only Christmas decorating can give. I put on my boots & gloves, grabbed a couple thumb tacks just in case & headed out onto the front porch to really light this place up. Someone told me I will never be able to live up to the previous dwellers from our childhood days, but I still enjoy lining this house with tiny white lights & wrapping them around every railing. I wrapped & carefully secured ends to keep a continuous coil of twinkling lights around the deck railings. They were all aglow. I checked each strand to see that every light was lit before I started winding them around railings. I was going to attach separate cords to the timer that has several plugs (like a surge protector...well I guess it is a surge protector if we're getting technical) so they did not get overwhelmed. Next, GENIUS! I should "build" a couple of trees on the front porch with the extra lights. So in the house I go for tree form materials. 

Those filthy bastards waited for me to go into the house to grab something, then blew a fuse! Now I have, oh, 8 billion unlit Christmas lights on my house & I am feeling like only Clark Griswold can understand my pain... Breakers, cords & light switches checked. I have to wait for daylight before I check every fuse on every strand. I won't travel up the ladder without someone very strong to catch me should I fall. Which means "I sure hope the blown fuse on those rotten sneaks isn't hanging from one of the gutters!!" 

I won't lie to you. This made me really want to cry. My hands were so cold my touchscreen wouldn't acknowledge them when I went to text my woes to my supportive friends & family. Settle down...I only whined to 3 via text & 1 in person...you're still getting the scoop while it is breaking news! (Unless you read this after December 17th & then, well, you might be behind the times...) So my cold, defeated, pity party throwing self came in for the night. Ooooh wait, I came in for the night after checking everything & then thinking "I'll get the reindeer out!" NOPE. That poor eating doe will look headless from the street! So I gave up. I'm not even trying to plug in Rudolph & see if he's still in tact. There are unlit lights adorning my house, an eating doe without any lights outlining her head, extensions cords & piles of lights littering the front porch AND I'M DONE! Until tomorrow. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will find the blown fuse, get the lights plugged into the proper outlets & the timer set...all without that beastly little kitten escaping to taunt me as I chase her around my driveway & yard hoping she won't dart out into the street to be flattened by a car. Did I mention she got out twice today? Well, she did! AND come to think of it there's a good chance the doe is headless because she too has been terrorized by the kitten. I found her laying on her side in the living room the other night after being awakened by a loud crash. When I righted her the kitten quickly jumped on her back to take her down again!

It's been a long, challenging day here. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start & one day closer to Christmas...so those lights have to work!!! Otherwise they are staying up til the end of January so I can get my full enjoyment out of them. Ha. Who are we kidding?! They will probably be up well into January either way!

Please cross your fingers that the blown fuse is not only accessible from a ladder!

I know what you are thinking..."she looks like a very sweet kitten sleeping among the Christmas crates." You have been fooled by her beastly kitten ways. This is how she looks after she breaks things & climbs bare legs with her razor claws.