Winding down....

It always takes a couple of days to get back to normal after one of our big parties. So much planning goes into one of those, plus all the work to rearrange furniture and set up tables and chairs. We really need a bigger house if we're going to keep hosting these parties.... a bigger kitchen, larger dining room.... and wouldn't it be great to have one big room that would be just for parties. One of the larger homes in this subdivision has just that--- a ballroom, for goodness sake. A large room with a wooden floor.... always set up for company with lots of small tables and chairs. That house was on the market a couple of years ago. I wonder if the people who bought it are hosting parties in that room...... or maybe they just made it a huge home-theatre.

The house as been as quiet as a tomb since the night of the party. After a four-piece band and 36 people have been here, an empty house is sort of like what the living room feels like after Christmas when all the holiday decorations are put away. Young Miss C didn't get to sleep over here the night of the Christmas party after all. Being that she had invited three of her girlfriends to the party, they decided to do a sleep-over at C's house. C asked me if I would mind if she cancelled sleeping over here, and I told her that would be just fine--- by the time our parties are over, all I'm really interested in doing is taking my time and cleaning up everything and putting the rooms back in order before I go to bed.

Pajamas for our chapter of the Pajama Program keep rolling in this month, which is a good thing. One of our friends bought 8 pajama sets to our Christmas party-- so that was a nice surprise. Our other friend has just hosted a Pajama Drive at the school where he works, and I will be picking up those pajamas (over 100) and books (over 300) at the end of this week. Our friend V collected 40 pajama sets and 63 books from the department where she works. By the end of December, we'll have collected and distributed over 2000 pajamas and over 1000 books since mid-April of this year. Not bad, in my opinion, considering that this has all been done on a small-scale personal level.

I'm still walking around the subdivision every night..... lot more holiday decorations are around now, and the streets look very festive. Mostly everyone who has a Christmas tree near a window keeps the window uncovered so the tree can be seen from the outside. It's like walking through a Christmas village every night. On our own street, there are fewer Christmas lights than in years past. Some of the houses on this street haven't bothered to put up any lights at all... or maybe they just haven't had the time to get around to it yet.

Our corner neighbor, the lady who always tossed out a strand of multi-colored tree lights on her front lawn-- she was here at our Christmas party, and she was also at our Halloween party. She has been dog-sitting her son's dog for over six months now, and because she has to walk that dog three or four times a day, she has gotten to know all of her neighbors, and she has become very friendly with all of us. Very interesting lady, to say the least..... she loves Elmo, Meatloaf (the music group), Star Wars..... who would have thought? (She's not exactly a "spring chicken" so those collections of hers are quite surprising.)

And the Christmas lights she tosses out on the lawn--- that started years ago when a neighbor (who has since moved) knocked on everyone's door and insisted that everyone on this street use white lights for their outdoor decorations. The neighbor wasn't taking any excuses, and kept insisting that everyone string up white lights and nothing else. Well.... the lady at the corner didn't want to be taking orders from her next-door neighbor, so she took the strand of multi-colored lights and tossed them out onto her front lawn. However they landed is where they sat for the duration of the month of December. Of course, the other neighbor was livid..... but the corner lady was happy. The tossed-out strand became a tradition with her.... and for the rest of the street as well, come to think of it. Before the corner lady started dog-sitting her son's dog and got to know the neighbors, all of us would wait anxiously to see if she would be tossing those colored lights onto her lawn. And when she did, we all said the same thing: Well, the lights are on the corner lawn, so the Christmas season has officially begun.

Now, since we've all gotten to know her, and like her, some of us are thinking of tossing out our own strands of multi-colored lights onto our lawns...... and wherever they land is where they will stay.

Jingle bells.......... whatever and wherever your holiday decorations happen to be.