It does not take long for my wife to get into the Christmas Spirit. Longtime readers of this blog know that she listens to Christmas music all year round. Once November is here, the season is “officially” underway according to her.
I took advantage of a semi-warm day over the weekend and took down all of the Halloween decorations. I hadn’t planned on putting up Christmas stuff, but there is this big archway we have and I figured I would get that out of the way. Once it was up, that was the last I really thought of doing anything more.
Then, we woke up to the first snow of the season.
When the kids saw snow on the ground they went crazy! They HAD to go out and play in it!
They played outside for a little while in the morning and came back in for breakfast. As the morning changed to afternoon, the sun took care of what snow was left on the ground. It actually wound up being a bit mild the rest of the day, so I decided to put the rest of the outdoor lights and decorations up.
Our Christmas tree was given to my wife when she moved into the house a few years before we got together. It was old and on its last legs last year. We had talked about getting a new tree last year after the holiday and just never got around to it. We really didn’t want to spend more than about $100 on a new tree and most are a lot more than that.
My wife heard that Home Depot was having their Black Friday sales until the 26th of this month. One of the deals was a 7.5 foot tree that was pre-lit with LED lights. It was on sale for $99. I went and checked it out and decided to bring it home. What is really nice about it is that because of the LED lights, you can make it all solid white or multi-colored if you wish. It’s actually very nice.
It was a pretty good deal and I’m glad that we won’t have to look for a new tree for some time.
Perhaps this year we can put the ornaments on the tree. So far, the cats have stayed out of the middle of it. I may wait a week or so before deciding for sure ….
I spent the weekend putting up the outdoor decorations. Believe it or not, no one was hurt in the process!
With the weather as nice as it was, I decided to get the lights up before it got too cold. I worked on the front yard first. We added two blow up penguins this year. I’m normally not one for these inflatables, but they were only $10 each! Sam loves penguins, so I couldn’t pass up the deal.
It looked cute with one on each side of the arch we got last year. You never really know what it is going to look like until it get’s dark, though. Somewhere between this picture and the next, I decided to put the extra tree on the front porch. Sam says it is too much. I’m not sure….
Sunday I decked out the side porch. Sam bought LED lights this year and they look extra bright. This is the easiest part of the house to decorate. I was going to change it up a bit, but decided to stay with what I’ve done in the past.
I guess I should have known that by doing the outdoor lights now (which is not odd), that Sam would start thinking about the inside. Monday I was home with the kids and they were kind of going crazy. Sam decided we needed a project to do, so I went downstairs and brought up the tree.
Bitsy, our kitten, isn’t even a year old yet. So we knew that the tree would be somewhere she’d want to explore. We decided that when we put the tree up, we’d leave the ornaments off of it. There are some fragile ones that we don’t want broken. Sam said we needed to compensate a bit for having no ornaments. So she bought a boat load of LED lights for the tree. Even after placing 900 lights on it, she still thinks there could be more!
We have a few other decorations in the basement, but I think we’re just gonna roll with what we have for now. I am not going to lie, sitting in the front room with all the lights off but the tree is one of those amazing moments I look forward to each year.
Christmastime is a happy time for me. I know it is early, but after all the stuff that has gone down over the last couple weeks – I like to be in a “happy place.”
I’d like to begin by thanking each of you who reached out either in the comments, via email, or text offering support after yesterday’s blog. I truly appreciate it you.
Today ends with more emotions – anger, sadness, confusion, and helplessness. I truly cannot wait for my appointment this week. Something has got to change. It is affecting me and those around me.
Enough of that. I want to share one of the highlights of my day.
Poke
Ella and I went to the doctor so she could get her flu shot. I needed to go to the lab in the same building to get my blood drawn. Before we walked in, Ella asked if she was going to “get a poke.” I told her, yes, but “it’s only a little poke.” She began to tear up and I told her that I’d be there with her.
I told her that I had to get a “poke” too and that she could help by being with me when I got mine. As we sat in the waiting room, she observed and announced everything!
“That guy must have gotten his poke, daddy.”
“Look a that little baby, daddy. She’s wearing small shoes.”
“Daddy, that lady is wearing pink lipstick.”
There was a guy who was just sitting with his eyes closed across from us. Ella announced, “Daddy. That guy must be tired because he is sleeping right here in front of everyone!” He smiled and opened his eyes. “Oh, he’s awake now,” she said.
“That lady has two babies!”
“Did you see that girl’s Paw Patrol shoes!?”
It was nonstop. She brought many smiles to the folks in the waiting room. When they finally called me back to the lab, they had me sit in the chair. She was next to me. The tech but that rubber thing on my arm and began to feel for a vein. She had no luck on one arm, so she tried the other. She then asked me, “Do they usually have a hard time finding a vein on you?” I told her that usually, it is no problem.
She kept feeling around and then asked her other tech, “Would you use a smaller needle on this vein?” The other tech came over and began to feel around. She had me drop my arm down and a vein popped right out. I guess that was the key. Anyway, they apologized for taking so long. They said, good thing you are not afraid of needles, or the wait would have made it worse.
Ella piped up right away. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Don’t worry, daddy. It’s just a little poke!” This brought smiles and laughter to all the ladies in the lab. She was showered with more stickers and a sucker.
Thank you, Ella, for being a ray of sunshine on a very hard day.
Holiday Decor
I mentioned yesterday that my coworker gave us a tree for the side porch. It went up surprisingly easy today after I got home from the doctor.
Sam had me put it in the corner on the side porch. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when I get home tonight.
I blogged about the arch that Sam bought for the front yard this week. She left the lights on and I was really impressed at how beautiful it looks at night. Those LED lights are bright. She did a video chat last night and I got to see it on her phone, but seeing it in person was so much better.
Engage!
I’m listening to a new audiobook in the car.
I’ve always liked Patrick Stewart. He is such a great actor. His one man show of A Christmas Carol is something that I listen to every holiday season. He reads it, and even though he has aged a bit, his voice is still strong and he is so expressive with his reading. I’m only about 10 chapters in, but it is very good.
With all that is on my mind, it helps to get lost in a good book on my drive to and from work.
Michigan weather has been just beautiful the past week or so. It looks like we’ll have one more nice day and the temps will drop. Saturday, while the baby was napping and my son was doing homework, I went out and cleaned up the leaves from the driveway. Later that afternoon, my kids and I got to get out and take a walk around the neighborhood. He enjoys pushing his sister in the stroller. It is a good time for us to just catch up.
I decided to take advantage of the weather and get the Christmas lights up. The more I thought about what I wrote in a recent blog, the more I was convinced that putting up the lights early would bring about some happiness in a year that has really sucked. My son and I strung all the lights out on the side porch. The nice temps made it easy to do and with him helping, it only took me half the time.
I got some of the decorations up out front, but I have a few bad strands that I need to check fuses on before I string them up. I am thinking of adding the strands of white LED lights that I had strung along the fence for our 4th of July party. I usually only put the lights along the rails on the porch, so it should be pretty easy.
After I dropped my son off and the baby woke up from her nap, we spent most of the day outside. We took our stroll through the neighborhood and walked a bit longer than normal. I had to laugh because when we got back home, she totally kicked her foot up like she was relaxing!
After our walk, we played in the leaves (until she tried to start eating them), played on the slide, sat on the trampoline, and then just sat in the grass. She was standing next to me in on the back lawn and I looked up and saw our shadows. For some reason, looking at them it hit me how fast she is growing up. I can’t believe she will be 9 months old tomorrow! The shadow was a reminder to enjoy every little moment like this…
Heavenly Jeopardy?
I have never read a bad thing about Alex Trebek. Every interview I watched of him, he always seemed like a wonderful man. With his passing, there has been an outpouring of wonderful tributes to him by celebrities all over the country. A friend pointed out that Trebek and the great Sean Connery passed away within a week of each other.
One of my favorite sketches on SNL was Celebrity Jeopardy. Will Ferrell played Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond played Sean Connery. In the sketch, Connery has this unreal hatred for Trebek and always made countless jabs about Trebek’s mother. It was always a treat to see Norm MacDonald playing Burt Reynolds in these sketches.
I always waited to see how Connery would take a category and make it dirty – for example:
Real Category: Let It Snow. Connery asks for: Le Tits Now
Real Category: The Pen Is Mighter Connery asks about: The Penis Mightier
I truly hope that SNL doesn’t miss the opportunity to do some kind of tribute to Connery and Trebek this week. I can see a Heavenly round of Celebrity Jeopardy with Ferrell, Hammond, and MacDonald being very funny!
Same Old Lions
Sunday, I got to see bits and pieces of the Detroit Lions game. It was awful, as usual. I saw this on Facebook today, and had to share. I know that this is totally supposed to be more of a political jab, and I am not posting it to be political, I just thing it is pretty funny!
The Election
It was certainly great to hear that voter turnout was so good. Whether your candidate won or lost, if you voted, you did your part! Over the past couple decades, we’ve seen a lot of division. We’ve seen a lot of lost trust in the system and the government. With every election, I hope and pray that the elected officials will do something to bring us together. I may have posted this picture before, but I thought it was one of the most powerful that I had seen this year:
In 2016, after the election, I wrote something on Facebook. It came up in my Facebook Memories today. It is worth sharing:
“Maybe we are family. Maybe we went to high school together. Maybe I went to college with you. Maybe we worked together. Maybe we bowled together. Maybe you and I like the same movies or music. Maybe we met at a conference.
However we met, however we know each other, you are here because you are my friend. You and I are Americans. We are citizens of the greatest country in the world. One of the great things about being an American is that we have the freedoms to believe what we want and vote for who we want. We don’t always have to agree. I say this because no matter where you stand as a Republican, Democrat, or Independent…..as a Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran nondenominationalist or Dispensationalist….. heterosexual or homosexual …..male or female…..employed or unemployed….union or nonunion…..I don’t care!!! You are my friend and I am glad you are my friend. You have the right and the freedom to believe what you want and voice your opinion. Knowing that we may not agree is ok with me. There are other things we have in common that led us to be friends. I haven’t deleted any friend or family member because of their vote, because of their faith, because of their sexual preference, or because of their job or financial status. Thank you for being my friend.
Life would be pretty boring if we were all the same! A quote from Andy Hargreaves came across my timeline today and I want to share: “If we were all on the same page, no one’s reading the whole book”!
So what if your candidate lost? So what? One of the first thing I learned as a kid was there are winners and losers in games and elections. So what do we do now? You take the words of a pastor friend of mine who reminded me that “The guy you voted for may not have won, but you should still pray for him.”
So that’s what I am going to do. Here are the Bible verses to back that up:
I Timothy 2: 1-3
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 