And so the saga continued; The crazy family on the mountain once more decided to put on their annual Christmas light show for their community. I got it in my head that it is what Michael wants us to do. I have a lot of day dreams. In this one, I convinced myself that he bragged about our lights to his new friends in heaven, and promised them a ring side seat from above. He told everyone they would easily see his earthly home lit up like LasVegas. I told Hus and Dan. I'm not sure if they are just trying to nurse me along or what, but there has been no humbug out of them and are completely on board with this.
With that in mind, my mind, such as it is, we have been going full steam ahead with the decorating.
We are actually beginning the second week of decorating right now. We were a little bit off schedule. Usually, things begin the day after Halloween, but since this was a “last minute” decision, we are now playing catch up. Not to worry, we are right about where we need to be with the progress. It’s a process of planning; we just don’t throw stuff up. It’s drawn out on paper first. We measure a lot of things to be sure everything can be viewed easily coming from both directions. Then we make little “scenes” throughout the front lawn. We divide the lights into categories, what colors will go with what scenes. Red for the reindeer, white for the North Pole and Snowmen, green for this, blue for that and so on and so forth.
Most of the lights are up in place and that took a few days because of so much testing and light bulb replacing. Then hauling the “stuff” out of the loft took three truckloads which had to be brought to the “light testing area” on the lawn by the front porch. I had hoped to get a few new big outdoor things to add to this year’s display but I wasn’t able to, so maybe next year we will.
Today was just terrific and went really well. We have a lot accomplished and had fun doing it. It was so fun because every truck and car that went by beeped and waved like they have been doing, and more and more of them kept going back and forth. Yup, the word is out on us again. A couple of guys were hollering “HO HO HO” and quite a few cars stopped in the driveway and wanted to know when the lighting will be. I think December 1st might be good. Then, this is the coolest part; the neighbors from across the road came over. They are building a board fence for their horse from our old board fence boards that we gave them. They want to light up their board fence now too! And even buy a couple of those lighted up deer. How cool is that! So I told them not to buy any lights because we have plenty left over they can have, so this is going to look really great passing by our homes. Then she brought me a pumpkin bread to have for Thanksgiving. Great! I love this place.
So organizing, hyper-active nut case that I am, ran round and put the stakes at each scene, making sure the right size is there for each plastic figurine, counting out the right amount for each one to be anchored. This is no time to be disorganized.
Speaking of figurines, I guess it was time to bid farewell with some of them. We had a couple of snowmen that seen better days and they just had to go. I’ve got a couple that lost their carrot noses and one without an eyeball that will have to be fixed somehow. Some of the candy canes turned yellow so out they went. Yuk. Then our Nativity angel broke her neck and it was spinning around like that gal from the exorcist. I got my glue gun out to fix her yet again this year but then she also lost her eyeballs and had her wings busted off too. She was a complete mess so I decided to go in search for a new angel. That’s when I discovered my stuff was considered “vintage.” Gee whiz I knew it was old stuff but vintage? So I did a search for “blow mold angels” and found out quickly they don’t really make this stuff anymore. Who knew? That’s when I figured out this is why I see everything in the stores are now fiber optics, grapevine type stuff, or inflatable. Holy cow, what’s a mother to do? Well not to worry, there are tons of blow molds on e-bay to be had, so I’ll get a angel on there that will match up with my Nativity set.
Then low and behold, we were stuck again with the Baby Jesus dilemma. Seems a few years ago, 10 years to be exact, we lost our plastic Baby Jesus that goes with the Nativity. He flew away in a really bad winter storm we had, never to be seen again. Nobody sells Baby Jesus’s; you had to buy an entire Nativity to get one, so we got a little baby doll from the dollar store to make do. Well, at the time we had a stray dog that kept stopping by here who we named Bobby that took up winter residence in the shelter of the Nativity lean-tu. Bobby took a liking to the baby doll Jesus and ran off with it. One more time we got another doll from the dollar store, this one a little bit better and well, seems my crazy German Shepherd puppy Amy has taken a real liking to this one. She stole it out of the Nativity and ran off with it through the yard, with me chasing her all over the place. Finally she stopped, put it down and laid on it, playfully growling, tail wagging, as if daring me to take it from her. Great; she’s guarding what she thinks is now her new toy. She wants me to play. Oh geesh. I have no time to play today. She doesn’t understand that. Amy is all about playing 24-7 whether you are or not. So I approach her and in my very best commanding voice that she thinks is a joke and order her to “give that to me” right now young lady. She slowly gets up, backs away and just as I reach for it, bam! She grabs it really fast and off she goes drag racing around the whole front half acre with my Baby Jesus. She headed toward the barn where I finally cornered her at the barn yard and this time I was really stern and convinced her to let me have it; and she did. I walked back down to the front of the property clutching the doll to my chest with that puppy rearing and rearing trying to get it away from me the whole time, and very gently put doll Jesus back in his rightful place in the Nativity, lying on a nice tuft of hay. Off I went to tend to the toy soldiers and what do I see flying past Santa????? You guessed it; that darn crazy lunatic of a puppy of mine yet again, running at warp speed dragging doll Jesus by the leg. I gave up on that for the time being and went back to secure the toy soldiers.
By now the winds were picking up and threat of rain and storms are nearing. We had to work faster, really get a move on fast, something Turtle Dan cannot possibly do. Finally, he and I laid the figurines out, measuring in between each one as usual and we staked them all down nice and securely. Hus came home early to help and built the fence for the reindeer, moved that three times, and added a Merry Christmas light up sign on the house by the door. After that, he set up the Charlie Brown gang in front of the pine tree without measuring (sigh) and I swear they are off center. I couldn’t convince him of that no matter how hard I tried, so they aren’t moving. Grrrrrr. Nobody said we were perfect, especially Charlie Brown.
Dan’s best friend is Josh, who is in school in Knoxville, and for some unknown reason we have his little 14-year-old giddy brother Tommy up here who Dan has adopted as his little brother. How did this kid even get her? I must have missed something. Anyhow, Tommy has been helping out all week long which is good for me too because this kid will brush a horse till his hands turn blue. Up on the barn roof they went today and got the lights up on the barn, and the wreath. Yay!
The big stuff is basically all finished now. The rest is simple and not time consuming. With the major stuff in place, we only have to garnish and add details; some garlands, bows, wreaths, and poinsettias plunked here and there. I love that part where I get to fuss and add the finishing touches. Michael’s Tabby will be here on Friday to decorate his tree so I’m excited about that. We love our Tabby and take good care of her all the time. Over the weekend, Hus will be up front and center. He’s the only one that can hook all this stuff up together with the electric cords. Now that does take him a few hours. Better him that me, that’s for sure. He’ll be like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation because we always do blow some fuses on the first couple of tries. Then he finally gets it. Then after he has everything all figured out, that’s when I go behind his back and start sneaking more light strands in here and there; wherever there is an open plug end. He doesn’t usually notice for a few days unless of course my additions blow more fuses.
I’m thinking of adding a few strands free form through the yard or making a fence outline or something cool. One year I attempted to make a tree using green lights. Well I messed up and the triangle turned into some type of strange geometric shape and no one could figure out what it was supposed to be. Everyone was asking the boys “what’s that green thing over there?” so it was named it “the green thing.” Well I thought it was pretty, whatever it was, so who knows, I might just make me a green thing, a red thing and even maybe a blue thing! There will be more lights on the porch, in the bushes, in the planters, wherever I can add some now. A couple of floods will be added in appropriate areas too. You just can’t have enough lights at Christmas!
So we wound up our day just in the nick of time because the rain came in and began to pour. I’m pretty sure that the next time you hear about our lights, I’ll have plenty of pictures for you and hopefully a Baby Jesus and a new angel or two. I’m working on it.
On this Thanksgiving Eve, we are acting a bit goofy as we begin our trudge through this holiday. Dan’s in the kitchen preparing our turkey bird for our Thanksgiving feast and I’ve got the stuffing cooking away. Step son is here from Ohio and we have another local friend of Dan’s coming to join us and since Tommy doesn’t want to go home, we’ll have a full table for dinner. And I was worried no one would show up.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Much love from me to you from the mountain.
With that in mind, my mind, such as it is, we have been going full steam ahead with the decorating.
We are actually beginning the second week of decorating right now. We were a little bit off schedule. Usually, things begin the day after Halloween, but since this was a “last minute” decision, we are now playing catch up. Not to worry, we are right about where we need to be with the progress. It’s a process of planning; we just don’t throw stuff up. It’s drawn out on paper first. We measure a lot of things to be sure everything can be viewed easily coming from both directions. Then we make little “scenes” throughout the front lawn. We divide the lights into categories, what colors will go with what scenes. Red for the reindeer, white for the North Pole and Snowmen, green for this, blue for that and so on and so forth.
Most of the lights are up in place and that took a few days because of so much testing and light bulb replacing. Then hauling the “stuff” out of the loft took three truckloads which had to be brought to the “light testing area” on the lawn by the front porch. I had hoped to get a few new big outdoor things to add to this year’s display but I wasn’t able to, so maybe next year we will.
Today was just terrific and went really well. We have a lot accomplished and had fun doing it. It was so fun because every truck and car that went by beeped and waved like they have been doing, and more and more of them kept going back and forth. Yup, the word is out on us again. A couple of guys were hollering “HO HO HO” and quite a few cars stopped in the driveway and wanted to know when the lighting will be. I think December 1st might be good. Then, this is the coolest part; the neighbors from across the road came over. They are building a board fence for their horse from our old board fence boards that we gave them. They want to light up their board fence now too! And even buy a couple of those lighted up deer. How cool is that! So I told them not to buy any lights because we have plenty left over they can have, so this is going to look really great passing by our homes. Then she brought me a pumpkin bread to have for Thanksgiving. Great! I love this place.
So organizing, hyper-active nut case that I am, ran round and put the stakes at each scene, making sure the right size is there for each plastic figurine, counting out the right amount for each one to be anchored. This is no time to be disorganized.
Speaking of figurines, I guess it was time to bid farewell with some of them. We had a couple of snowmen that seen better days and they just had to go. I’ve got a couple that lost their carrot noses and one without an eyeball that will have to be fixed somehow. Some of the candy canes turned yellow so out they went. Yuk. Then our Nativity angel broke her neck and it was spinning around like that gal from the exorcist. I got my glue gun out to fix her yet again this year but then she also lost her eyeballs and had her wings busted off too. She was a complete mess so I decided to go in search for a new angel. That’s when I discovered my stuff was considered “vintage.” Gee whiz I knew it was old stuff but vintage? So I did a search for “blow mold angels” and found out quickly they don’t really make this stuff anymore. Who knew? That’s when I figured out this is why I see everything in the stores are now fiber optics, grapevine type stuff, or inflatable. Holy cow, what’s a mother to do? Well not to worry, there are tons of blow molds on e-bay to be had, so I’ll get a angel on there that will match up with my Nativity set.
Then low and behold, we were stuck again with the Baby Jesus dilemma. Seems a few years ago, 10 years to be exact, we lost our plastic Baby Jesus that goes with the Nativity. He flew away in a really bad winter storm we had, never to be seen again. Nobody sells Baby Jesus’s; you had to buy an entire Nativity to get one, so we got a little baby doll from the dollar store to make do. Well, at the time we had a stray dog that kept stopping by here who we named Bobby that took up winter residence in the shelter of the Nativity lean-tu. Bobby took a liking to the baby doll Jesus and ran off with it. One more time we got another doll from the dollar store, this one a little bit better and well, seems my crazy German Shepherd puppy Amy has taken a real liking to this one. She stole it out of the Nativity and ran off with it through the yard, with me chasing her all over the place. Finally she stopped, put it down and laid on it, playfully growling, tail wagging, as if daring me to take it from her. Great; she’s guarding what she thinks is now her new toy. She wants me to play. Oh geesh. I have no time to play today. She doesn’t understand that. Amy is all about playing 24-7 whether you are or not. So I approach her and in my very best commanding voice that she thinks is a joke and order her to “give that to me” right now young lady. She slowly gets up, backs away and just as I reach for it, bam! She grabs it really fast and off she goes drag racing around the whole front half acre with my Baby Jesus. She headed toward the barn where I finally cornered her at the barn yard and this time I was really stern and convinced her to let me have it; and she did. I walked back down to the front of the property clutching the doll to my chest with that puppy rearing and rearing trying to get it away from me the whole time, and very gently put doll Jesus back in his rightful place in the Nativity, lying on a nice tuft of hay. Off I went to tend to the toy soldiers and what do I see flying past Santa????? You guessed it; that darn crazy lunatic of a puppy of mine yet again, running at warp speed dragging doll Jesus by the leg. I gave up on that for the time being and went back to secure the toy soldiers.
By now the winds were picking up and threat of rain and storms are nearing. We had to work faster, really get a move on fast, something Turtle Dan cannot possibly do. Finally, he and I laid the figurines out, measuring in between each one as usual and we staked them all down nice and securely. Hus came home early to help and built the fence for the reindeer, moved that three times, and added a Merry Christmas light up sign on the house by the door. After that, he set up the Charlie Brown gang in front of the pine tree without measuring (sigh) and I swear they are off center. I couldn’t convince him of that no matter how hard I tried, so they aren’t moving. Grrrrrr. Nobody said we were perfect, especially Charlie Brown.
Dan’s best friend is Josh, who is in school in Knoxville, and for some unknown reason we have his little 14-year-old giddy brother Tommy up here who Dan has adopted as his little brother. How did this kid even get her? I must have missed something. Anyhow, Tommy has been helping out all week long which is good for me too because this kid will brush a horse till his hands turn blue. Up on the barn roof they went today and got the lights up on the barn, and the wreath. Yay!
The big stuff is basically all finished now. The rest is simple and not time consuming. With the major stuff in place, we only have to garnish and add details; some garlands, bows, wreaths, and poinsettias plunked here and there. I love that part where I get to fuss and add the finishing touches. Michael’s Tabby will be here on Friday to decorate his tree so I’m excited about that. We love our Tabby and take good care of her all the time. Over the weekend, Hus will be up front and center. He’s the only one that can hook all this stuff up together with the electric cords. Now that does take him a few hours. Better him that me, that’s for sure. He’ll be like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation because we always do blow some fuses on the first couple of tries. Then he finally gets it. Then after he has everything all figured out, that’s when I go behind his back and start sneaking more light strands in here and there; wherever there is an open plug end. He doesn’t usually notice for a few days unless of course my additions blow more fuses.
I’m thinking of adding a few strands free form through the yard or making a fence outline or something cool. One year I attempted to make a tree using green lights. Well I messed up and the triangle turned into some type of strange geometric shape and no one could figure out what it was supposed to be. Everyone was asking the boys “what’s that green thing over there?” so it was named it “the green thing.” Well I thought it was pretty, whatever it was, so who knows, I might just make me a green thing, a red thing and even maybe a blue thing! There will be more lights on the porch, in the bushes, in the planters, wherever I can add some now. A couple of floods will be added in appropriate areas too. You just can’t have enough lights at Christmas!
So we wound up our day just in the nick of time because the rain came in and began to pour. I’m pretty sure that the next time you hear about our lights, I’ll have plenty of pictures for you and hopefully a Baby Jesus and a new angel or two. I’m working on it.
On this Thanksgiving Eve, we are acting a bit goofy as we begin our trudge through this holiday. Dan’s in the kitchen preparing our turkey bird for our Thanksgiving feast and I’ve got the stuffing cooking away. Step son is here from Ohio and we have another local friend of Dan’s coming to join us and since Tommy doesn’t want to go home, we’ll have a full table for dinner. And I was worried no one would show up.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Much love from me to you from the mountain.
