It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Last year we were knee-deep in our house remodel so just a sad little fake tree was the extent of our Christmas decorations.

I am a real tree kind of gal.

I love that no two trees are ever exactly alike

so all our pictures are slightly different.

I love the smell.

I love that when Christmas is over, 

we can just haul it out to the street 

and the city will take it away.

It’s been fun finding new places in our new space for our old decorations.

I still left a lot of things in the Christmas boxes.

I’ve learned that too many knickknacks cluttering 

all the open spaces in a room clutters my brain.

And makes it tired 

and frustrated.

I feel that way about decorating our Christmas tree too.

I like it simple and sparsely ornamented and illuminated.

Every year I am tempted to just string some lights 

and call it a day.

My girls wouldn’t have it.

Still, it’s easy on my eyes and doesn’t scream at you when you walk into the room.

I hosted a brunch for my prayer group last week and one of the ladies thought it was “adorable” how few lights I had on the tree.

I didn’t realize 400 lights was a few.

She puts around 2,000 on hers.

Yowza.

Speaking of lights,

we always put some up outside with fresh greenery around our front door 

and windows 

and illuminate various bushes and trees.

Well, Monte and I can just not fathom the thought of putting a single staple into the new wood around our front door.

Can’t do it.

So we are in need a new plan.

In the mean time, we’ve done nothing.

Our girls pointed out to us that we looked like the Grinch house on our street with all our Christmas Spirit and decorations being on the INSIDE of the house and not equally represented on the OUTSIDE of the house.

Monte has been in and out of town for two weeks so I decided not to wait on him and did the easy thing which was to take our solar lights that we have around the trunk of our beloved Sycamore tree in the backyard and just use them for the front of the house.

But they are those LED lights so “white” actually pulls blue.

And they are SOLAR so any little bit of light 

like the ones hanging by the front door 

or coming from headlights, 

triggers them to turn off.

Or go into a frenetic strobe-like pattern.

Compared to all the pretty clear-lit, ELECTRICALLY illuminated houses nearby, 

ours has the strength and intensity of a weak night light.

That’s blue.

And sometimes stuck on intermittent strobe.

We pulled into the driveway after Ellie’s choir concert Monday night to the faint, sad, blue-blinking mess when she declared,

“We are an embarrassment to our entire street!”

It’s really no exaggeration.

I texted Monte who was still out of town that he better brainstorm and bring home his “A-game” in the outside illumination department.

Sans stapling our new wood.

Then I parked myself in front of the TV to address Christmas cards.

One of those home Christmas lighting competition shows was on.

Not good timing for someone who was just told their house was an embarrassment.

I watched intently and made mental notes.

At one point, I let myself entertain the thought of water cannons.

Yes, a man in California incorporated water cannons 

and fire 

into his lighting display.

All synced to music, by the way.

I decided I needed to turn off the show.

I’ll show more Christmas house pictures soon.

 Like this one:

Not sure why, but this reminds me of David Lee Roth in a music video from the 80s.
The gator looks so festive, doesn’t he?

In the meantime, I have to go buy lights.

Lots and lots of lights.