Oh Christmas Lights, Oh Christmas Lights!

Well, today is the day! Clint is going to put up the Christmas lights outside. Yeah! He pretty much has today to get it done since he has to work the rest of the week and this weekend is going to be wet and rainy. Clint just came in and sat down and says....Bah, hum bug!

I have these pictures from our first Christmas together when we put up the lights that I thought I'd share (but, unfortunately, I've somehow deleted them ALONG WITH ALL OF OUR WEDDING PICTURES!!!! And, I can't find the back up CD!!! Can I just say, I've cried a good part of the day?). Clint loves the big, old fashioned C9 Christmas lights....I don't. But, one of the conditions of him putting up the lights that first year (and every year since) was that he had to be able to put up the C9s. He had all these white ones mixed in and the paint was coming off of some of the colored bulbs and they were just ghastly. But...he still put them up. I can't say they looked AWESOME up, but they were a part of him so I tried to like them (not very hard, he says).

Then, last year, I took matters into my own hands and went and bought a TON of replacement bulbs for them. If we had to have the C9s up, they were going to have new bulbs - bulbs that worked, bulbs that weren't peeling, bulbs that were pretty colors. He likes the opaque ones and I like the translucent ones. So, we're still working that out...but the replacement bulbs have all been translucent bulbs! In fact, this year, we had enough to replace all of the remaining opaque bulbs so now all of them are translucent and they are beautiful! I told him today that we will be replacing all of those next year with blinking translucent bulbs and he said no way. Hmmm...Bah Hum Bug again.

Last year, he added the icicle lights to the mix and I have to say, I really liked it. We had a very pretty light show and the neighbors even commented about it. One thing that we had that nobody else had was a Christmas light-lit "For Sale" sign! C wrapped a bunch of lights around the pole and the sign and we even had a blinking red light to help draw attention to it. However, it didn't help...we never did sell our house. Oh well.
So...off we go to the garage to start the light work. Oh...and this year, we're doing the backyard too! We have a LOT of lantana that is in full bloom right now and it's gorgeous. If we get a bad frost, I don't want it all turning black again and having to start over. So, keeping the lights on it during the winter will really help save it all....plus, it will look really pretty at night!

In searching for the pictures I wanted to share, I came across these pictures of the dogs at Christmas last year. Here is Koda with his Christmas Santa collar...Next, we have Miss Pooh and Doodles in their little Santa outfits. I think they really liked them because they keep them warm. Plus, when I show the outfits to them now, they get all excited and wag their tails really fast!
This was Koda with one of his presents last year - the long Christmas dog from Petsmart. He loved it. He ran around the whole evening with it, teasing Doodles and everything.
This is what Doodles' little Santa dog looked like when we woke up the next morning. Koda had killed it.
And, this is what a small portion of our living room looked like when we woke up. There was stuffing EVERYWHERE. It was just awful. There had been 3 Santa dogs...now there were none.
Fun, eh? The joy of dogs. I guess we'll have to find them something completely different for Christmas this year!