A Solution To Taking Down Christmas. Not In The Literal Sense. In The Decorating Sense.

Hey!  Before I start, I almost forgot to tell you all!  I got an email saying they received my contest entry.  For those of you who don't know (which is probably like - 1 or 2 random people who've never been here before), I wrote a book over the summer.  And there is a local contest for best unpublished novel.  So, of course, I entered it.  Why not, right?  If they want my complete manuscript, which I admit to myself may very well be unlikely, but that's OK because it's only my first attempt, I should hear by late February. 

Progress on my second book completely ground to a halt over the holidays.  But I'm really wanting to start back to work on it now.  I hope to carve out some time in the next couple of days to dedicate to it.  I also have an idea for a third book if I don't turn the second one into a series (which I always thought I would do).  It's quite different than either of my first two attempts.  We'll see if it continues to weave its way around my head. 

Oh and I owe you all an apology.  I looked back at my previous two posts, and I realized that I mentioned (I hate to even say it now) decongestants way too much.  It's the drug high.  Sorry!  I'm on "them" again today, but I promise that is the only time you will see "them" mentioned in this post.  I hope.  ;o)

Anyway, now that those little tidbits are out of the way, I'll get on with it. 

So as I thought, we are itching to take down all the Christmas decorations.  Joshua, of course, does not understand this.  He would like to leave them up.  All year round, naturally.  So I have spent an inordinate amount of time over the last two days in particular trying to make him understand that we can't leave them up. 

But then I had an idea. 

Why not leave them up all year round?  Think about the amount of time we'd save each year in putting up decorations and taking them down?  Wouldn't it be lovely?  And if we all agreed to do this, it wouldn't look weird.

For instance, I know some people who keep candles in their windows all year.  And they even turn them on every day.  Or they have them on a timer or something but you know, we don't have to turn them on.  (BTW, I totally wish I could afford a timer for all my candles so I'd never have to go around and turn them all on and off.  Or I wish I could afford to have an electrician come and wire all the outlets at our windows to a single switch so I could turn them all on and off with a single motion.  They have that in new homes.  If I remember right, they call it the Christmas Lights package.  Oops.  I digress. . .)   Once it's dark, no one would know we even had candles in our windows.  And you wouldn't have them on during the day, right?  Because that would be just silly.

And wreaths look nice on your door all the time.  They are welcoming to any home.  If you have wreaths or some other type of garlands on your windows, maybe you could buy some little hearts or something for Valentine's Day.  And some flags for 4th of July.  And pumpkins for Halloween and Thanksgiving.  And so OK, that's a little bit of decorating, but not nearly so bad as the whole process of putting up and taking down Christmas, right?

Now - we'd have a little bit of a problem with the tree situation.  Because they are kind of big.  And some of them are real trees.  The real trees would start to fall apart and be kind of a big mess.  So you real tree people have to figure out something.  Maybe you could varnish them or something.  But either way, we have a problem, because, let's face it, those suckers would be hard to dust.  I suppose we could throw sheets over them.  I'd even let Joshua decorate the sheets with stickers.  Same idea as the holiday wreaths.  Heart stickers for Valentine's Day.  Flag stickers for 4th of July, etc etc.  (Sidenote - when I worked at SunTrust, I used to drive by a house on Parham Road that kept their tree up all year round.  They didn't change out the lights or decorations.  It was just a Christmas tree all decorated and ready for the next year.  Seriously.  I admire them.)  Then after Thanksgiving next year, all we have to do is pull the sheet off and voila!  All decorated!  Isn't this a fab idea?

All those Christmas knick-knacks?  Well we can compromise here.  They can be a bit cluttering.  We could all pitch them.  Or we'd have to dress them up for the other holidays.  (New Sidenote - when I lived in Powhatan with my parents, I used to drive by another house that had those brick wall thingies on either side of their driveway and they had stone squirrels on them.  And they used to dress those squirrels according to the holidays.  Until the Gulf war.  Then they just wore little army uniforms with little helmets and machine guns and stuff.  Again, totally true.  But still, once again, interesting concept.  See where I get my inspiration for this idea from?)

What do you think?  Should I start a petition?  Or should we just all agree to do this and I will have to take you all at your word?  Don't forget, my loyal followers, I know where some of you live.  I enter your homes occasionally.  I'd know if you stuck to your word sooner or later. . .

Sigh.  I guess not.  It's so much more fun putting it all up than taking it down, isn't it?  Oh well.  Until next year!  Have a great day folks!