My Favorite Things

This time of year is usually my favorite time. The transition between year round inside house decorations and the Christmas holiday decorations occurs. I get my storage boxes and tubs out from under the cob webs and shuffle through all the contents inside. You see, in order for me to remember exactly what's in each container I have to do that. But it's fun to remember each item and where it came from as I pull things out from their protective coverings. This year however, I've only put a few things out compared to last year. I won't be here on the actual holiday as I'm traveling to ND to be with my family.
Our weather here in Omaha has been nice and mild this past week. I had planned on hanging my outside lights during the weekend. However, I left work early on Saturday and ended up being sick with a 24 hour stomach flu. Don't ask me why I got it. But I did! So that took care of that nice day. I had no choice but to wait until yesterday. It was yet another beautiful day outside. My entire day was spent cleaning, rearranging the living room furniture and putting Christmas decorations out for display. Once I get in this mode, there's no stopping me. I find my favorite holiday music station on the TV, turn it up so that I can hear it all over the house, and set to work.
I continued with my inside tasks until I thought I better go outside and hang the lights before dusk. All my lights are stored in a big rubber maid tub in the garage so it was easy to just open it up and pull things out. I found my ladder, hung the lights from the gutters, set lighted presents on the ground, put over-sized lights on stakes into the ground and hung lights over my porch railing. Then I found my extension cords and connected them all together. There aren't many houses in my cul-de-sac that actually decorate the outside of their house. So it's nice to drive home at night and see mine and my neighbor's house across the street all lit up!
Then it was back into the house and continue with my cleaning. I moved down to the basement and put a few things up down there.
But it was soon time to think about cooking something to eat. Besides the fact that my body was beginning to cringe each time I moved another box or tried to vaccuum something else, I was getting hungry! I hadn't eaten much all day.
But I had accomplished what I had set out to do. And it was only the 30TH of November! I must tell you that I had also heard the forecast for the remainder of the week. It was going to get much colder and windy. So I knew I had to get the lights up when I did or it may not get done at all!
But I'm ready for Christmas. The scents of my holiday candles fill my house each night. I hope to do some baking next week and get some of my gift shopping done as well. We'll see how it goes!