It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

Each night there are more houses in the neighborhood decorated with lights and things like blow-up figures of Santa or a line of reindeer with heads that bob up and down. There are mangers and angels too. It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!! I decided this past weekend it was time to pull our lights out of storage and get a few new decorations while they're on sale. The only problem has been the weather - rain and high winds with dipping temperatures (except for today when it spiked back up to the 70s, bringing tornado watches!) I wasn't about to get out in all that just to put up a few decorations! By the time the sun went down today the mercury had dipped again but the rain had stopped briefly and the winds had died down a little. It was time for quick action! Wanting to keep things simple this year I attached a small wreath of greenery and pinecones to the top corner of each of the two big windows on the front of the house. Then it was just a matter of draping a long length of both solid red and red plaid ribbon up through one wreath, swagging it across the top of the window, and threading it back down through the other wreath. Letting the "tails" of ribbon hang a good way down the sides of the window I cut them to a "V" on the ends and voila! Very simple, very easy, and very pretty. A length of the same wide solid red ribbon wound in and around a new large wreath of greenery and berries was finished with a bow to make a fine decoration for the wall at the end of the porch. Then it was time to untangle the 3 sets of net lights (what a wonderful invention those things are!) and throw them over the row of azalea bushes along the flower bed in front of the porch railing - plugged one into the other, and the final one into a heavy-duty outdoor cord and voila again! I keep an old well bucket on a rustic stand by the front door filled with seasonal silk flowers, foliage, and such. Removing the huge Autumn bouquet and replacing it with one of pine boughs, red berries, and frosted twigs was a quick presto-chango - finishing it off by wrapping the afore-used wide red ribbon around the bucket and tying a bow took about 5 more minutes - not bad! Last but not least was a swap out of the Thanksgiving flag for a Christmas one. Not a minute too soon either, as the freezing wind was beginning to scatter around a light shower of rain. Determined to admire the finished product, I ran out to the street to survey my handywork - what the heck, I was already red-nosed from the cold and beyond wind-blown. Why not add soaking wet to the mix?! The porch looked so beautiful. How bright and cheery! Too bad it can't be seen from INSIDE the house - oh well, hopefully passers-by will enjoy. Finally came back inside for a change into warm, dry PJs and socks. Now it's off to bed with my cup of hot Sleepy Time tea in hand and a good book ("Finding Noel" by Paul Evans - perfect Christmas reading.) Oops! Guess I'd better turn off those lights...