Tis the Season

Jason and I have never quite recovered from our colossal parenting fail as we attempted to go out and deck the halls for Christmas last year. We I had really grand plans. I wanted lights on all of the roof lines of the house; the first story, the second story and the porch. I planned to have wreaths and garland on the front gates at the road. I envisioned wreaths on barn doors and various gates around the farm, and garland along the fences bordering the driveway. 

The list ended up looking something like this when it was all done, with the crossed out items things that never got done:

• lights on first story of house
• lights on second story of house
• lights on porch roof - success!
• wreaths on front gates - success!
• garland on front gates
• wreaths on barn doors and barnyard gates
• garland on fences along driveway
• put up Christmas tree - success!

Unfortunately we ended up with a couple of unanticipated additions to our Christmas decorating list:

• one toddler skipping up and down the porch screaming "god damn cheap ass lights!" 
• Jason hanging precariously from our ladder that wasn't in the Christmas spirit
• one dark spot in the middle of our one sad line of icicle lights
• one strand of icicle lights pointing up and giving us the finger
• Jason and Melissa seriously considering leaving the bleeping lights up all  year so we never had to do this again

For those who didn't see our handiwork last year here is a turnback Tuesday picture of our icicle lights giving us the finger; it's in the middle and a little bit blurry from the porch lights. I guess this picture should have been captioned Merry Christmas from the Webbs.

We I have no grand plans for decorating this year. I told Jason that if we could get our two little strands of lights up on the porch, put the tree up, and slap up a few wreaths, and do this with minimal drama I would consider it a total victory.  I mentioned this in passing last week. I had proof that Jason does actually listen to me from time to time (I'm pretty sure this is a rare thing) this Saturday when he came driving through our front yard with one of the tractors, barking instructions at me to raise and lower him in the bucket while he hung lights on the porch roof. Jason's statement was the ground was dry, it was sunny and warm, and he was putting the ****ing lights up while he had reasonable working conditions.  

Normally we fall into  the "don't decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving" camp. After last year's near death experiences combined with our skipping, cursing child we decided to carpe diem and put our two little strands of lights up when we had perfect working conditions.

Since we managed to do this with no drama, no near death experiences, and no skipping, cursing toddler, I might revisit my grand plans next year. We don't even have a strand of icicle lights giving us the finger, or a dark spot where the two strands connect. We managed to learn a few things last year! I am sure that, upon reading that statement, Jason will go crawl into a closet, curl up in the fetal position, and start saying "no, no, no, no, no." It's ok Jason, I'm only considering it at this point. We have an entire year to fight about reasonably discuss this.

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Jason getting things done

Carter and one of our cats, Joy, watching Jason put up the lights

We had our last dentist appointment of the year on  Monday; Cocomo having his turn

Silver

Gus

Dolly and Maisie

Rip

Elfin

Norman and Cuffie

Rubrico and Johnny

Lotus and Gus

B-Rad and Mick

Murphy and Alex

Taco and Nemo

George and Asterik taking turns rolling