The Decorating Drama Continues

So, as the title implies, the decorating drama continues.

See, the problem is we don't have any outside electrical sockets. Which means we can't have any outside lights unless we want to somehow run an extension cord from the house to the outside which leaves the door open to cold air not to mention murderous criminals intent on anti-Christmas mayhem.

And one of us might be willing to risk that but the other is pretty convinced he would be ripped from sleep three or four times a night as someone poked him in the side and hissed, “Did you hear that? Did you hear somebody in the house?!"

The long and the short of it is, we don't have any outside lights and everyone else in the neighborhood has outside lights--including the annoying neighbors next door and the new ones across the street who don't even manage to notice a Halloween bag on their door for 3 1/2 weeks...but I digress.

And I should clarify, that we didn't have any outside lights.

Until this week when I got the brilliant idea that some lights are battery-operated and don't need to be plugged in at all and could probably be found online and delivered, thus avoiding any dealings with the wild hordes of Christmas shoppers crowding the stores.

At that moment a tiny voice in my head suggested that it might be good to consult Opie on this as he is much better with most things electrical but then I thought ‘Seriously, they're lights. How hard could it be to order some stinking lights? Plus I figured we might be nearing the edge of Opie’s Christmas cheer as he has already been a pretty good sport about dressing up like Ralphie for the Christmas card (more on that later, I promise!) and agreed to a holiday party.

So I found these adorable timer activated battery operated Fairy lights and immediately ordered two sets.

Anyone note the problem with the previous sentence? Because I didn't catch it until the lights got here.

Fairy lights.

And fairies, for those of you who have never seen Peter Pan, are tiny.

Not small, TINY.

This is the box they came in:

 
And these are the lights themselves:

Some people would take one look at these lights, realize they’d made a terrible mistake, then not even bother to open them,  just pack them up and send them back for a full refund.

Those people are quitters.

But, ever the optimist and definitely no quitter, I said to myself “Self,” I said. “Maybe they’ll look better once I get them wrapped around the porch railing.”

Which was a complete disaster.

I mean, you would think something as small as fairy lights would take no time at all to set up. Unfortunately, call me paranoid, but I’m pretty sure there was a tiny invisible fairy flying around, grabbing the lights when I wasn’t looking and trying them into ridiculous knots.

Ok, yes, this is supposed to illustrate the knot
but LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THOSE MINI BULBS.

Which led to some very  un-Christmas like swearing I can assure you.

Which convinced two rather ridiculous dogs that I was being attacked on the porch and needed their assistance immediately. Assistance that came in the odd form of hysterical barking and demands for treats.

Which led to more un-Christmas like swearing mingled with shouts of “Shut up, you mongrels! Shut up before I kill you!”

Which, oddly, didn’t do a darn thing to quiet the dogs but no doubt convinced the neighborhood that A. I’m mentally unstable or B. I’m getting a stocking full of coal this year. Or both.

In any case, the real kicker is that after all of this, we are still about one string of lights shorts from actually covering the entire porch railing.

So now it looks like I started to put up the smallest lights in the history of Christmas lights, got bored (due to my aforementioned mental instability, no doubt), and just stopped. Which means the real dilemma is, what do I do now?

Leave the lights and tell people I got my decorating inspiration from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Island of Misfit Toys?  Order one more string of lights, based on the theory that ridiculous lights are better than no lights at all?
Or do I pack them up return them get my money back and be the only house in the neighborhood without lights the rest of the Christmas season while the rest of the neighborhood jeers and points and laughs at us behind our backs?

Or do I just pour myself a glass of wine the size of a human head, wait for Opie to notice the problem and scream “Why do I have to take care of everything for Christmas? You fix the lights if they mean that much to you.”

Honestly, it’s like the problem just solved itself.

Decorating and Drama

So, it's early in the Christmas season & Opie has been wondering if the decorations are ever actually going to make it out of the boxes in the living room and into the house.

Would you believe I already
 have half the boxes put away?

Which is, obviously, the wrong question.

The right question question would be "Are we still going to have all three pets by the time the decorations finally make it up or will I be forced to murder them to death?"

And, to be honest, it doesn't look good for the ridiculous animals.

See, The Bub is staging some sort of protest...He has spent a shocking amount of time walking in circles around the boxes in the living room, crying to be let outside, standing on the porch for all of 30 or 40 seconds then barking to be let back inside. I haven't had a chance to really explore his list of demands but knowing his long history as a political activist, I'm sure it has something to do with the plight of dogs in third world countries.

I tried to be kind as I explained to him that his protest, while admirable, is incredibly annoying but he didn't take it well. To put it mildly, we are no longer speaking.

I am also no longer speaking to Princeton P Kitty.  Largely because he's trying to kill me.

Here's what's happening: Opie has always said we can't have a real Christmas tree because we have a cat. The thing he forgets is that we don't have a normal cat. A normal cat would probably try to climb the tree and/or bat the ornaments down with his paws.

Our cat likes to hide behind the fake tree and then fling himself out at whomsoever is passing by.

Considering that I am the one who is usually passing by--with things in my hands and distracted  by a politically protesting dog--I'm pretty sure his plan is to give me a heart attack or send me tumbling to the ground in a flurry of tinsel, trinkets and tree debris.

Sassy, clearly, is the only one who  feels any sense of loyalty to me. Unfortunately, that loyalty has manifested itself in protecting me AGAIN from all the Kleenex we have in the house...to the extent that she pulled my jacket off the back of the chair, stuck her nose in the pocket to dig a couple out, then proceeded to try dragging the entire jacket up the stairs...distracted only by the awful attack of the mailman--who chose that moment to announce his intent to murder all of us by delivering a package.

Which seems a strange way to share a death threat but what do I know about the ways of assassins?

Sassy, though, wasn't fooled. She immediately dropped my jacket, ran across the room to the baby gate that keeps the animals out of the front room and actually broke through it like some sort of crazed mutant hulk of a dog.

Yes, you read that correctly. She broke the gate.Now the only thing we have keeping visitors, door-to-door evangelists, delivery persons, etc. from our dogs is their steadfast obedience to my authority.

We're doomed.

On the bright side, after days of decorating, although I haven't gotten as far as I'd like, I managed to create a cool way to display the Christmas cards...and by "create" I mean "shamelessly steal a cool idea from a friend."

But it's Christmas, why get caught up in semantics?

Anyway, I got some ribbon and a bow, wrapped it around the top of the fireplace, and now I can attach our cards to the ribbon and display them all season...

In fact, I liked the idea so much, I also wrapped one of our doors like a present, put a ribbon and bow on it too and have 2 places to display Christmas cards.

So, in short, bring on the Christmas cards!  But bring them on carefully since our protective gate is broken, our dogs are crazy and our cat is plotting murder!