Our house is lit, yo.
And no, your eyes do not deceive you: that is a flamingo wearing a Santa hat, front and center.
We decorated the yard ourselves but hired a guy to install the lights around the eaves. It wasn’t cheap, and in the end, they eschewed tall ladders and simply climbed onto the roof to do the work. Pretty smart, actually. Our roof isn’t very steeply pitched and is easy to access from the backyard, so I’ll probably just do that myself next year.
Easy to say now, I know. I’m very brave when I’m not 20′ feet in the air staring down at a cement driveway! But I think it’s doable (I used to climb onto the roof of my townhouse in Washington every year), and it’s a lot cheaper than the $180 we paid. At least that includes uninstallation in January.
The price doesn’t matter, though. This is what I envisioned our house looking like last winter!
In preparation for Thanksgiving, we are brining our turkey tonight. Coincidentally, on this exact date 10 years ago, I had my hands full contending with hungry kids, a fancy meal, and an exploding turkey. That incident set the stage for a series of bad-luck holidays involving broken hearts, broken gall bladders, broken kidneys, a broken pancreas, and—most recently—a broken sewer line. For a while there, I dreaded the holidays because they brought me pain, either emotional, physical, or financial. This is one reason why I was so reluctant to climb up that ladder myself; bad things often happen to me in November and December. Fortunately, there’s no imminent health risk in 2020, amirite?!
Oh, shit…
Fortunately, my holidays usually alternate between good and bad, and Biden’s landslide election has me confident this year will be one of the better ones.
Still not sure if I’m writing every day this month…
Mark My Words 
Your house and yard looks amazing!!
Sent from my iPhone. Pattie
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Pattie! Hope you and Roger have a nice Thanksgiving. Hoping you feel better soon.
LikeLike
Wreath around the neck, Santa hat. I was close. There should’ve been a prize.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You have my admiration for almost-guessng-correctly! Which, let’s face it, is better than any monetary reward, right?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pret-zels, my friend. Pretzels!
LikeLike
Nice yard. I just saw Biden being interviewed by NBC’s Lester Holt and it filled me with such calm to have a leader who can hold a normal, sane, rational conversation. No longer will I have to run from the room screaming every time the president comes on.
LikeLiked by 3 people
You ran from the room screaming; I just turned the TV off. Same reaction, different response! 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
I might have been exaggerating. 😉
LikeLike
I threw stuff. Husband banned me from the living room.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we all have a certain of year that just sucks. Mine is March, as in the Ides of March.
Which is preferable to holiday suckage. I think.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I say if you’re going to have some suck in your year, make it sometime that doesn’t revolve around the holidays. I’d prefer the dog days of summer, maybe late August.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was thinking January. After Christmas. At the Naval Academy, they call it “The Dark Ages.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bravo! The display is wonderful, and the flamingo is the perfect topper. We had an alligator years ago. In Maine. Needless to say we were the only ones. $180 seems steep for light hanging, but damn… they are perfectly straight and that soothes my anal retentive soul.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wanna see the alligator.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sadly the snow buried it alive and killed it years ago. But I could probably dig out a picture someday..
LikeLiked by 2 people
I want to see it, too! Either now or gator, doesn’t matter when…
LikeLike
I love the look, great job! The flamingo is a nice touch. 😛
I’m going to click all those links later and travel down your memory lane. Thanks for linking, I love that. So convenient. 😘
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank YOU for taking the time to actually follow the links! There is 10+ years of my life you have missed out on, so if you’re ever bored for a month or two, click away!
LikeLike
Wonderful display of lights. Not so over the top as to be tasteless, but not so ordinary as to be boring. I love the flamingo. It brings the whole display together.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s difficult to strike the right balance without being too tacky. Glad we succeeded!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for being festive while also not tipping the scales over into Trailer Park Holiday Tacky.
Even your flamingo is holidelightful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t worry, I promise not to go all “Happy holidays! Shitter’s full!” on anybody.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not quite getting the link between flamingos and Christmas…? Probably me being obtuse
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nothing really, lol. I’ve just written in the past about my obsession with pink flamingos as yard decor. A holiday flamingo is very fitting (probably only for me).
LikeLike
Ok so I read all the links. Wonderful!! You’ve had a few challenges… didn’t you! Glad I went to read. 💜
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m very impressed that you read those! Thank you. I did not write about the broken heart (at least not on this blog) because it was just too painful.
LikeLiked by 1 person