Christmas Decorations – Monday’s job

It’s that time of the year again when we’re taking down the summer and fall stuff and digging out the Christmas things,  and that’s exactly what we were doing tonight. The only thing that I just don’t understand is why in the world do we always have to do this when it’s so stinking cold outside? I mean it’s really cold tonight. The temperature can’t make up it’s mind if it wants to be 4 degrees or 6 degrees. And honestly, at that temperature it really doesn’t matter now does it! But we are working to get all our lights up these next couple of days and we always want to have them lit by December 3rd. You guessed it – it’s another Tradition. Now I’m sure you’re wondering what December 3rd has to do with anything right? Well when we were kids, that’s when it was time to put up the Christmas tree. See it was my brother’s birthday and as I got older I realized it was our parents way to get all of us kids to stop asking just when we can put the tree up. We had to wait until his birthday! So December 3rd was the day. Now for me it’s a good goal to have. I mean if it goes up much earlier than that, well that’s still Thanksgiving  right? And much later? Well then your neighbors are kind of wondering just what’s going on and why didn’t you have this done yet. So December 3rd it is. Now getting back to tonight. Our goal was to get the garland and all the lights up on the front porch. This should be a very doable task even if we have to take breaks to get the circulation going back in our finger tips. It didn’t take that long and the garland was strung. OK, the big job was done – now for the lights. Where were the lights?  I checked out the totes stored in the barn and the white lights that I wanted to use on the house were not in there. Weird. So they must be stored in the basement, and I found out soon that they weren’t in there either. I don’t know if you have these moments…. but I literally was standing by the Christmas stuff just looking it over thinking that maybe I’ve overlooked them and then they’ll magically appear. Yea, not so much luck on that! I really was confused on just exactly where they were and because they were no where to be found, this cut our porch decorating short tonight. We decided that we’ll get some tomorrow night and finish it up. So I was laying in bed trying to figure out where in the world I put them and then it finally dawned on me where all those lights were. Are you ready?  Well, a couple of years ago our previous male puppy had this terrible habit and would bite all the Christmas lights off the strands. At the time we couldn’t figure out just why all our lights were going out and then we started to find the light bulbs scattered all over in the lawn. Yup, that’s what happened to them. I had used some colored lights that I had instead last year and never replaced the white lights. And knowing our ‘new’ male puppy’s habits and what he can do with the extension cords, I’m a little worried that we might want to buy spares when we get the new lights.