Jingle Bells........

Little by little, the Christmas decorations are starting to come out of the holiday closet. I've got the big Santas out, and Mickey Kitty has inspected every one of them. They stand on the floor, nearly 3-ft. tall, so he's a little overwhelmed by them. Which is good--- the more overwhelmed he is, the more he's likely not to bother with them. We've been so lucky with the other cats... they never bothered much with anything around the house. Unless you count AngelBoy, who is fascinated with anything that has a leopard-patterned fabric. But he doesn't bother those things, he just curls up on them. (My slippers, an afghan, pillows, to name a few.)

H's bells are out on the front door this year, protected from the sun and the weather by the overhang on the front porch. Even since our friends & neighbors H & M moved up to Georgetown, I've had their 1950s-style Christmas bells in our home. I bought them from H when she had a big moving sale before they left. They remind me of the holiday decorations my parents had when I was a kid, and I just love them. They've been in a different spot each Christmas... three large gold-sparkling bells hanging from red velvet ribbons.

I've got Thanksgiving-colored silk ribbons on the Quackernackle Ducks in the front flower bed.... I was going to put red ribbons on them, but I usually leave the pumpkins outside for Thanksgiving (as long as the heat doesn't turn them to mush), so the orangey-gold ribbons look great on the ducks as they sing to the pumpkins. (Honestly. They do sing, and you can hear them when the sun goes down. If you have a good imagination, that is.) After Thanksgiving is over, I'll re-dress the ducks in red satin ribbons.

While I was out there in front of our house this morning getting the ribbons on the ducks, my neighbor V walked by with her dog. "What are you doing?" I told her I was dressing the Quackernackle Choir with Thanksgiving ribbons. "You are what?!" I repeated just what I told her the first time, then added: "Look, V.... you pull up weeds.... I make bows for my ducks."

Gorgeous day out there today..... bright and sunny and very warm. I wish it would stay like this for the rest of the year, but I know we'll get a few cold days here and there. When the temperature drops to 70 degrees here, the weathermen tell us it's "sweater weather." And they're so right, because at 70 degrees, we're bundled up in sweaters and jackets. I was on the phone with my sister last night, and I told her that very thing, and she just couldn't understand how I could be "freezing" on a 70-degree day. I told her to move down here and she'd find out very quickly how her body could get used to hot/hot/hot days for months & months on end, then start shivering and shaking when the thermometer drops below 75.

Oh well, back I go to the Christmas boxes. Little by little, a box or two every day. I intend to have the whole house decorated by Thanksgiving. Then all we'll have to do is get the big tree into the living room and get that all lit up and decorated before our Christmas party. The fresh Christmas trees are sold in an empty field on Highway 3. The big striped tents are already set up, so I would imagine the trees will be delivered the week before Thanksgiving.

Jingle bells.... Christmas will be here before y'all know it.