Feeling: silly and young
Listening to: Bif Naked - Rich and Filthy
Reading/Watching: nnnnnnnnothing...

Ever since I was old enough to crawl, I've loved nothing more than putting up Christmas decorations.

There was something about standing at the base of the ladder leading up to the yawning black hole of the attic, watching my father's feet disappear into that abyss until boxes would be handed down an assembly line: crumbling cardboard boxes thick with dust, stuffed with stockings and ornaments and the wobbly fake tree and that one gigantic box full of the most tangled ball of lights known to man, which would somehow turn into sparkly pretty things wrapped around the trunks of the trees, and draped around the front door.

This year Nimsay and I don't have a tree. But we have a wreath on the door, a nativity scene on the counter, candles everywhere, and lights. I keep turning off all the lamps and sitting in the glow of the lights, playing our little keyboard and singing.

It started with a string of white, and a string of purple. I sacrificed my fingernails to pluck out half the bulbs and trade them from one string to the other, so we'd have two strings of alternating white-purple. Half of one string doesn't work, and since I'm not about to pull out all those bulbs again and return it to the store, the dark half is tucked surreptitiously behind the TV.

Then there were the icicle lights. I'm addicted to them. I know they're cheesy and overrated, but I had to have them. So I stood on a (very wobbly) footstool and, one by one, jabbed thumbtacks into the wooden trim around our (very high) porch ceiling (my thumbs officially hate me now), and festooned our patio with white strings of fairy lights. I had a near-death experience when the footstool jiggled and I got a lovely cockeyed view of the pavement below me, but once the lights were hung, it was worth it.

I keep running outside to look at the icicle lights again. They almost make me forget that it's sixty-five degrees outside. It's so incongruous, seeing our roses blooming under Christmas lights.

Reminds me of when I was younger, and Dad hung this huge wooden star with white lights all around the edge of it outside my bedroom window. I can't stand any glow coming through my window, unless it's Christmas lights. Then I can't stop looking at it.

It's like I'm five again, sneaking downstairs to gawk at the tree and imagine it with presents under it.

Hell, the entire Christmas season makes me feel five. It's not like I start celebrating it in September, but I hope I never get jaded enough to dislike it.

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