truth be told, i consider myself a white lights in the window kind of a gal. like, forever and ever i swore i’d only have white lights on our christmas tree and our shrubs and in our windows. maybe, if i felt  particularly enthusiastic, i’d string some garland across the fireplace and weave in a strand of lights. which would also be white, of course.

some say that’s totally lame. so unspirited. you may be right – but that’s just how i grew up and how i thought of christmas. hey, swanzey’s got a lot of class people.

this year, my children are 2 and 1. well closer to two and a half and one and a half, but who’s really counting anymore. and in all seriousness i was ready for our christmas tree before thanksgiving (which is a first ever) and i wanted color. lots of it. and i wanted gaudy, over the top.

so i went to the christmas tree shop. and i bought 93 things for $12. 98 and brought them home and threw them around the house.  and it felt so freaking wonderful. the kids were soooo excited. they giggled and yelled and pointed at the snowmen, the wreaths, the candles, the sticky door decals that look a little too  much like jello jigglers. please lord, let them be non-toxic…

ok, so i didn’t photograph as many of those. but still, we’ve got some good festivity going on around here, no? and good golly holiday cards from our friends and family make the best decorations around.

(good golly? damn, i am getting old.)

and even, even when i opened the box of colored  lights for the tree and realized i must have bought easter ones (yes, they were on clearance and no, i didn’t really look at the box. who puts out easter lights IN DECEMBER  at the fucking christmas tree shop? ok, i’m over it. i swear.)  pastel pink, green and violet bulbs strewn along a white cord - i could have cared less. they were not white – albeit the cords, yes – and jackson was dancing a jig.

bring it on eastermas.

which brings me, in a round about way, to the point of this blog.

two years ago we were visiting relatives in new hampshire - it was early december. we returned home after dark, turned onto our road and stared in horor at our house.

the bushes were decorated with big fat colored bulbs and there was a family of grinning blow-up moose holding a “happy holiday’s” sign swaying in the breeze. it took all of four seconds to realize that , yes, this is our house, no, aliens have not  invaded, and absolutely our neighbors, and good friends, had taken it upon themselves to, er, help us out a little. apparently, they thought the whole white lights in the windows  thing was unacceptable. 

i’m pretty sure the whole ensemble lasted two weeks at best. i just couldn’t stomach it…yet.

and then this year came along. and our good friends and neighbors weren’t going to put up their trusy inflatables. and because it’s been a hard few months for them and because we love them dearly, and because – let’s be honest – i need a good hard dose of back to earth-ness once in a great moon, we did the (once) unthinkable.

  uncle joe, this is for you. thanks for helping us see that white lights can wait. until we’re like 72 and wrinkled.

 from about age 16 to 28 i forgot about the spirit of christmas. it wasn’t until i was able to see it’s magic, through the eyes of my kids, that the light came on.

 from our house, to yours and back – merry christmas, happy hanukkah, joyful kwanzaa and splendid eastermas to you.

and to the person who can find a snow globe, just like this one but with a family of blow-up moose i might just um, be really, really happy.

love, light, health, happiness, courage, strength, joy and many smiles to you in two thousand and eleven.