This year's different (Essay #7)

                I anxiously wait all year long to enjoy the strings of lights that outline the houses, the big red decorative bows and wreaths on the front doors of others homes as I drive by. Somehow it seems to keep getting closer and closer to Christmas before we can do this, and it saddens me! So this year, I will step forward and say “So what if it’s before Thanksgiving!” and “So what if there’s no snow on the ground!” I am going to deck my house out with Christmas decorations now so that my family can enjoy it even longer!

            First I am going to go down into the basement and locate all of my boxes that are labeled “Christmas” in big permanent marker letters, which add up to be about 4 or 5  medium sized boxes. I bring them all upstairs and open them up just like its Christmas morning with a huge smile on my face. I carefully take them out one by one, each having its own unique memory popping into my head as it lay in my hand. From little ornaments that my children and I crafted up last year to the very first ones from when they were first born and even ones that I invented as a kid. It takes me back to the ever so delightful stroll down memory lane and shortly reminiscing on the good times.

             Then I let the children go to town, only after I do the MOST important thing you have to do before starting or it just isn’t the same! You flip, flip, flip through the overloaded cd case until you say “AHH HA!”, then slip the disc into the cd player and you crank up the Christmas tunes! As the kids are decorating the house with popcorn on a string and perfectly colored Santa’s and Christmas tree’s get tacked and taped up everywhere, I’m out on the front deck unraveling the strings of lights. It doesn’t matter how carefully you wind those lights up the year before they are always tangled and a bugger to untangle. After that’s done I plug them all in and make sure they work. They do! Yay! I peek in the big front windows at the kids dancing away to the music having a good ol’ time, and then I have to join them after seeing their cute little faces. I pick them up and twirl with them in the kitchen for a while then its back to work and onto the next step, putting the lights up outside.

             In my opinion, I find it way easier to put up the lights and things outside without snow everywhere and the kids little fingers don’t get so cold and it’s much more enjoyable. While the kids hold the lights up on the railings in place I come along and staple (by the way, staples are better than nails!). After we finish that I top the house off with icicles all along the roof and the garage. We throw some lights on two little fake trees that sit on each end of the deck. Then we head inside to do the tree. We dance around decorating the tree together but we do not put the tree topper on until daddy gets home so he can have a little involvement of the holiday spirit.

          Last, after all the decorating is done, we bake our traditional Santa and snowmen shaped sugar cookies and colorfully frost and sprinkle them. We patiently wait for the sun to go down and daddy to arrive from work. It’s just like the big blast of that first fire work you see when you turn on all the lights. It’s so exciting! It’s a rush, and so beautiful! Everybody should do it early like us, so we all can enjoy this warm cozy feeling inside even longer!