christmas illuminated

I think I have said it before, but Tim and I love Christmas!  So much, that I thought I would write some more about it.

For those of you who don't know, my husband is a regular Clark W. Griswold when it comes to Christmas, particularly Christmas lights.  One of his favorite traditions from childhood is hanging the big bulb Christmas lights around the house with his dad.  He loved it so much that when he went to college he continued the tradition (1), and when he decided to propose to me he did it with Christmas lights (2). 

I also grew up with a love of Christmas decorations.  I always had my own tree that I would decorate in different ways each year, and even bought some cheesy light-up angel for my dorm freshman year.  We are two peas in a pod when it comes to Christmas decorations. 

This year, I thought I would walk you through our Christmas traditions.

First, we went Christmas tree hunting with the Felton family the day after Thanksgiving (another tradition).  Below is a picture of Tim's brother Dan and his son Alex helping us find a perfect little tree for our house. Next to that is Tim's brother, Nick, posing next to another one of the candidates. 

 

We finally found the perfect little guy, and brought it back to Bloomington the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We got back in the early afternoon so that we could start decorating right away.  Tim put up the tree and I baked some gingersnaps and made tea.  Then we pulled out all the lights and spent the rest of the night checking fuses and measuring gutters.

The next evening, we decorated the tree.  Josh, Tim, and I got out all our ornaments, and took turns putting them on tree.  This way, we all got to see each others' ornaments and say, "Ooh, that's a nice one," or, "Good placement."  It was a Feltigan tradition in the making.

 

A few years ago, Brett's Christmas gift to us was about 15 boxes of Christmas lights and an angel tree topper dressed in red.  Tim loved the lights, of course, but the angel seemed a little odd (mostly because of her unconventional red dress).  We placed her on the top of our tree this year, but added an IU symbol to make her red apparel seem more appropriate.  Also, you may be wondering where the yellow contruction paper rocket ornament came from.  It is leftover from the year we didn't have any ornaments and asked our friends to make some from construction paper.  It was really fun, and we tried to save them all, but only a few survived the move.

The next day, after troubleshooting some extension cord/outlet issues, Josh and Tim finished the lights outside.  To the left is a picture of them reveling in their masterpiece (Josh is hugging Tim, but its hard to tell)!  Tim was on a serious high after that.  He started walking around the house exclaiming, "We need some Christmas lights here, on the ceiling maybe," and, "Wait, I'm concerned because the kitchen doesn't have any lights yet."  I had to remind him that Al Gore was already judging us, and that Josh just might crank the thermostat down a few degrees for every strand of lights he put up.

Finally, we ended up with two trees (upstairs and down), outside lights, a strand around the garland above dining room archway, a couple strands for the Christmas cacti, and a strand for the glass head.  You'll have to come by and experience for yourself the wondrous holiday spirit that is bursting forth from our little home.

lovecare.

Footnotes:

(1) In college, Tim dressed in Brett's coveralls to stay warm while hanging Christmas lights.  When he got the coveralls on, he started talking to himself in some hillbilly accent.  He developed this character of some redneck who strings Christmas lights for a living and hung all the Christmas lights as this character, mostly for his own entertainment.  When Brett came out to see how it was going, Tim responded only in character.  Brett was extremely annoyed by this behavior.

(2) Here is a picture of Tim's Christmas Eve proposal!