Holiday Stuff

Well, THAT holiday is over! It was an absolute zoo around here for four days.  Had three sisters, one mother, one brother-in-law, a niece and a nephew here from Thursday through Sunday.  Mom slept in a rented hospital bed in the living room, the two extra upstairs bedrooms were full to overflowing, and one sister (with allergies) slept outside in our RV.  I'm sure nine people doesn't seem like a huge crowd to some, but, as I said, we're used to just the husband and me rattling around in this big house.  The rest of the family lives 120 miles south...so when they visit, they come en masse and usually stay for a few days!  It's exhausting, but I enjoyed the heck out of it.  And I think everyone had a good time.  SO different from some of the crappy holidays we had just after my dad died.  Back then, it seemed like we would never enjoy each other as a family again.  This is one GOOD lesson I've learned in the past five years:  Never say "never." 

So, now I'm going to spend the entire week putting up outdoor Christmas lights.  On Sunday, Matt and I climbed up on the roof and did the "upstairs" part of the lights.  It wasn't raining (unusual for the Pacific Northwest this time of year) so we thought we'd take advantage of it in order to lessen our chances of falling off the roof and becoming holiday statistics.  Yesterday, I TRIED to continue the momentum.  Put up two strings of fancy lights, fussed with their exact placement for about 45 minutes, and THEN plugged them in.  Of course they didn't work.  About a half hour into the process I thought, you know, I really should have tested these before putting them up....  Duh!

Today, I'm off to the pool, and then I'll come home and TRY to finish the lights.  I need to get a picture and post it when they're done.  They're really quite a production.  Our house sits at the end of a long block...kind of a showcase location in the neighborhood.  So,of course, I feel obligated to make it LOOK like a showplace during the holidays ;-).  Our electric bill is way high in December...