Outdoor Christmas Decorations
My favorite time of the year is Christmas time. I love everything about the season. I live in Minnesota so this is the time of year when we begin to have snow on the ground and ice on the lakes. It is a beautiful time to begin with, then as people begin adding outdoor Christmas decorations the neighborhoods become magical. I love to take walks at dusk and watch the lights come on creating a winter wonderland before my eyes.
Although I love Christmas I am very particular about outdoor Christmas decorations. My favorite decorations are the use of lights in trees and bushes in the yards. I am not a fan of the huge blow up snowmen and Santa’s or the cartoon characters that are dressed to look like Santa Claus. When I was growing up the neighbor across the road from us had a huge pine tree.
Each year he would use extension ladders to place the strands of large colored bulbs in the tree. The project would take him and his sons several hours to complete and the end result was a lit tree that could be seen a half mile away. He did not believe in leaving the outdoor Christmas decorations on the tree over the summer. He would put them on the day after Thanksgiving and remove them a few days after the beginning of the New Year.
This was a great deal of work, compared to plugging in a ten foot snowman, but the lit tree was awesome for others to enjoy. It was very touching to everyone the year that the neighbor’s wife died. He placed all blue lights on the tree that year to let us know he would be having a blue Christmas. He told my mother that it was helpful to him and a remembrance to his wife.
One of my neighbors knows that I dislike the gaudy outdoor Christmas decorations. He is always looking for practical jokes to play. Last year when he knew that my husband and I were going to be gone for the day he decorated our yard with several lit Christmas lawn ornaments. He had purchased several old outdoor Christmas decorations throughout the summer at garage sales.
He had extension cords running from one end of our yard to the other to get all the decorations lit. There was a full scene of the peanut characters, several Disney characters and a huge lit palm tree with lit pink flamingoes with Christmas lei’s around their necks. We could see the display a block before we arrived at our yard. Several neighbors were gathering in front of our house to look at the elaborate display.
My neighbor sat at his living room window watching the scene. My husband and I are now plotting how we are going to out do his practical joke. The neighbor has a second home in Florida so we are trying to coordinate getting the outdoor Christmas decorations sent there. His brother-in-law has agreed to set them up in the yard.
Anonymous
