The Freelance Retort: Holiday Decorating Time

So I gave the Maples a few more days to sort things out and despite their indignant leaf bearing tenacity, I decided to move on.

I know….

It’s not easy to do the right thing sometimes, but I didn’t see any other choice.

My neighbors were out in force this past weekend stringing lights from stem to stern, hanging garland and bows and blowing up those “festive” lawn balloons of Polar Bears and Penguins.

Even the Zombies across the street were out there on ladders, hanging their own traditional holiday offerings from the rooftop….

Not something you see in every neighborhood, but anything’s festive once you cover it with twinkly lights and tinsel.

So, not wanting to get too far behind, we decided to decorate and hang the window wreaths.

Well, Z decorated the window wreaths, which pretty much just entails attaching red bows, and I affixed them to the windows utilizing the same old suction cups I’ve been using for the past 12 seasons now.

And they still suck…so to speak.

Which is a good thing…so to speak.

Oh sure, every now and then we’ll get a good stiff wind and I’ll find a wreath wrapped around the pug's neck, next door; but he’s a nice dog and I can usually wrestle it away from him pretty easily.

Of course there was also the time we had that big winter storm, just before the holiday, and old Mr. Tannenbaum, from down the street—that’s actually his name…I wouldn’t make that up…sort of—happened to be looking out his front window just as a myriad of flying, festive foliage landed on his front lawn. Confused, the old man mistook the tightly wrapped, decorated orbs of balsam for the imaginary elves that had been vexing him ever since he watched “Frosty the Snowman” earlier in the week, and began to beat them with a broom handle.

The wreaths were okay, as was Mr. Tannenbaum…eventually…but Mrs. Tannenbaum finally had enough of this increasingly erratic behavior and subsequently left in the middle of the night to pay a visit to her chiropodist at his condo in West Palm.

So you have to be careful….

Anyway, once the wreaths were up and all the window candles installed, with precisely synchronized timing devices attached, I decided to take the next step and light the little bushes that sit in our front garden.

I was doing things a little out of sequence this year since the wreaths and the candles usually come last on the holiday decoration parade, but I was feeling a little reckless, so I just threw caution to the wind and mixed things up.

Yeah…I know…crazy, huh?

Well, when you basically use the same decorating scheme year in and year out, you have to do something to shake things up, just to keep things interesting.

In the meantime, while I was attending to the little bushes—that we call, Barbara, George and Jeb—Z was out back decking the deck with a myriad of colored lights and bows. This is Z’s personal pet project—according to me, anyway—which I know she enjoys, despite the cold wind, and the numerous times she has to untangle and wrap the recalcitrant lights around the copious spindles…mostly because her whining seems to decrease in increments every year.

But that could just be the cold making it difficult for her to move her jaw.

I didn’t want to overdo, all at once, so after that we called it a day and went with a half lit look that night.

Luckily, the warm weather arrived on Monday so I unflinchingly broke out the big boy ladder and set my sights on hanging the large wreath about 25 feet up on the chimney, as I’ve done every year since 2001, which has become a bit of a tradition…as well as my stepping back to admire my handiwork, which in some years includes me remembering to step down from the ladder first

Then of course there's the large bush in front of the house to be tackled as well as our own Polar Bear, who keeps watch in the night.

The final touch is the lighted garland that hangs over our threshold, which beckons friends and family from all around that we’re officially up and running for another holiday season...which is sometimes a problem.

But not as much a problem as the Zombies Across the Street had that year when they mistook their Uncle Barney, for a bough of Holly and strung him up over their threshold…which had a much different effect on the neighborhood carolers than was intended.

But that’s the beauty of the season. Everyone has their own ideas and traditions as to what’s appropriate and tasteful when it comes to holiday decorating.

And I think Uncle Barney actually enjoyed that particular season more so than any other…until the fire department came and ruined everything.

Gotta love the Holidays!