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Fantasy Romance

Christmas tree

Craving Christmas Lights

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I normally love Christmas lights, but this year, I am absolutely craving them.

It’s been a hectic month with a lot of trials. Not as bad as last year, but I feel like getting sucker punched over the holidays is almost a tradition.

Still, I love the lights. The bright colors. The beautiful, or sometime garish, displays.

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Even the snow co-operated with just a dusting.

I’m not sure why I like them so much. Perhaps it’s the bit of nostalgia from my childhood. Driving around and looking at lights was one of the few things we did as a family that involved very little fighting.

Maybe it’s the time of the year. A little light goes a long way when the is sun winning at a game of hide-and-seek.

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This is very much my life for most of the winter.

I’d love to say it’s the holiday season itself, but as a parent, I have found the holidays a lot more stressful.

Whatever it is, seeing the lights on my way home from work makes me smile after a long day. I even spontaneously burst into Christmas carols a few times this year. Good thing I was alone to save any potential passenger the pain of my horribly off-key singing. Tone-deafness runs in my family.

Reminds me that we really should do more to decorate for the holidays.

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Pretty and shiny.

It was fun putting up the tree this year, and the kids loved it, but the lone angel in the front yard looks pretty sad. My husband doesn’t really care to decorate, but he humors me.

Or, I can avoid the stress and just enjoy other people’s decorations. Perhaps I’ll check the after Christmas sales and think about it next year.

But if you are decorating, know that at least one person out here appreciates your efforts. And thank you.

 

“Oh, Momma Look!” Never Ends Well

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At least, it never ends well for me.

So, when we were at Home Depot of all places, and that come out of my daughter’s mouth, I knew I was really in trouble.

What had caught her attention? An eleven foot dragon. Yeah, she’s totally my kid.

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This one.

I have to admit, she has good taste. But it looked HUGE in Home Depot. I couldn’t imagine how big it would be on our suburban front lawn.

Of course, she reminds me that we have no other decorations. Which, she’s not wrong. I don’t suppose the three little pumpkin walkway lights really count. I love watching the kids dress up at Halloween, but I hate anything macabre. You can keep your ghosts, skeletons and dead brides, thank you very much!

But she’s now at the age where she really wants to decorate for the holidays. Unlike my husband and I who were known to go without even a Christmas tree before we had kids.

I told her I’d think about it, hoping she’d forget. Of course she didn’t forget, and she reminded me about it for the next two weeks.

So, we went back to get the eleven foot dragon. When we got to Home Depot, the thing was sold out. Even the floor model was gone. This was back at the end of September, and I was shocked. A quick search with my phone showed no other Home Depots with guaranteed stock in the area. But I could still get it online.

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Thank goodness!

So, I assuage my daughter’s crushing disappointment that she isn’t getting it that day with the fact that it will arrive in three to five days and we probably wouldn’t have had time to put it up that weekend anyway. She trudges back to the car, but at least I got her out of the store without a scene. There’s more than one reason why I do so much shopping online!.

The dragon arrived, my husband put it up for her, and she is now totally excited. So excited, in fact, that when she and her sister saw the dragon deflated the next morning on the way to school, they both were super insistent that I needed to “fix” the dragon.

Raising a pair of dragon lovers. Couldn’t be more proud!

 

Do you decorate for Halloween? If so, do you go all out, or were you like us with our three little pumpkins? Any of your neighbors go all out? What’s the best or worst display you’ve seen?

Kitten + Toddler = Well-Loved Tree

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The presents have been purchased for sometime now and are all wrapped and ready to go. My oldest daughter really gets Christmas this year, so that’s been fun.

My youngest daughter doesn’t really get it, but she has learned the words: Get out of the tree!!  And listens. Mostly. Okay, not at all. She must be physically plucked from the tree, and the moment her feet are on the floor, she’s right back into it.

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She took this as a personal challenge. And won.

She can be distracted with toys, books, and cuddles.

Our kitten, on the other hand, has no such weaknesses. There are no baby gates high enough and no squirt bottles wet enough. I have literally soaked him with a water bottle, and he will not get away from the tree. He has broken four branches, yes, broken them, and destroyed ornaments I didn’t think could be broken.

He steals ornaments off the tree and hides them. The big red Santa has been missing since the day the tree went up.

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Some of you are thinking I should’ve seen this coming. Except that I’ve had cats since I was a about seven and not one of them was this obsessed with a Christmas tree.

While our Christmas tree won’t make the cover of any magazine or blog spots, it’s been well-loved and brought a lot of joy (if also a lot of fussing).  We were smart enough to not even bother putting any breakable ornaments on the tree, and we saved the really sentimental ones for another year.

 

How about you? Ever have a pet, child, or someone else mess with your holiday decorations? Perhaps even destroy them? Any tips or tricks on how to protect them?