Christmas Decorations

It's that time of year again. That time we all have aspirations of being the most awesomely decorated house on the block... okay well, not really, but we do feel a little "deer" pressure when our neighbors start decorating, and in order not to be a humbug, we feel the need to put some decorations out too!

I have a rocky track record with outside decorations. My mother bought me some lovely grapevine, light up deer (in order not to feel deer pressure, one must actually have some deer to put out), very classy. Their heads move, the doe moves her head up and down, the buck moves his from side to side, slowly, as gracefully as a motorized light up deer can, and I've had them for several years now, they were my first outside decorations.

A few years ago, some of the neighborhood kids apparently decided that my deer were not already animated enough, and decided to rearrange them for me... enough said. Everyone pretty much thought it was funny but me. I was pretty unhappy and it caused me to not put them out the next year, mostly because I didn't want unknown people tampering with my things and breaking them! so there was bump in the road number 1, everyone else still finds it pretty funny, except me!

So I got over my fear of the deer being rearranged and tried it again, luckily with no mishaps, and we even added some critters and an igloo in the back this time, very cute, a polar bear and a seal, they also move, the seal turns his head and flips his tail, the polar bear moves his head. The igloo didn't move, it just sat there looking homey and cute. Until I decided it was time to bring them in, during which I discovered just how homey the igloo had become. As I went to pull the little spikes out, a big rabbit exploded out of it and took off across the street! Now this was funny, or so I thought, until I realized what had happened. The igloo was no longer attached to it's plug. I guess the rabbit had decided that he wanted to get back to basics and having an igloo with electricity was too posh!

My husband made a valiant attempt to resurrect the igloo this past weekend armed with wire strippers and a soldering iron, but to no avail, too many wires had been chewed through too close to where connections had to be made. And so we had to bid the igloo farewell. We're trying spiral trees this time, much less welcome shelter to a bunny we hope. I just think it needs a little more though. Maybe more trees, a penguin or two, I don't know. I did see a really cute lit up giraffe in a Santa hat and coat that I had to point out to a friend, but I just don't think it would go with the whole winter forest/arctic theme I've got going.

Anyway, below is our contribution to lighting up the season. I'm sure anyone who's decorated outdoors has many funny yet frustrating stories to tell!