Strings of Light...

We don't hang lights here at the House of Leprechauns, for a number of reasons, all of which boil down to the same thing: we're lazy.

Thankfully, other people here in the Friendly City have been very busy picking up our seasonal slack:

 Just this afternoon, walking to pick up the boys, I saw that many of my neighbours have begun stringing lights and arranging ginormous blow-up Santas on their (still-green) lawns.

Wreaths adorn their front door and complicated-looking planters filled with cones and what looks like pussy willows (that can't be right, can it?) flank their tidy walkways. Even the hot single fireman down the road has  placed tiny, perfect single "candles" in every window of his house.

It makes me happy, this abundant joy that so many have for the season, despite the fact that there's not a drop of snow in the forecast and I that  heard the distinctly "summer" sound of a lawnmower as I strolled along.

Earlier this evening, I drove through a Spring-like fog on my way to school for a group project. Part of my route takes me through an area of town that's a little bit...sad. It's an odd combination of industrial units and forgotten residential streets and normally, there are no homes that draw my admiring gaze or porch-envy. Most don't draw my gaze at all.

Until tonight. Tonight, nestled in the soft fog hovering atop a deserted street, I blinked it surprised wonder at an otherwise unremarkable white two-story house on a corner.

The industrious and Christmas-loving folks who live there have used old-fashioned lights - small, brilliant, rainbow-hued colours - against faded white boards to transform a house that no one ever truly sees, into the happiest house on the block. Possibly the happiest house in the city, so far.

Seriously.

No icicles or rectangular patches of colour tossed hurriedly 'round a bush for these folks. Nope.
Instead, with what I can only assume was painstaking patience (or a LOT of coffee in their Baileys)  the Christmas Family (as I have now officially dubbed them, in my head)  strung miles of lights  PERFECTLY around the house, tracing its lines  from top to bottom, curling around the corners, edging the windows, along the eaves troughs.

In a word? Awesome.

Sadly, I don't have a photo to share because, well, I suck that way. But the Christmas Family? They sure don't. In fact, they've made me so happy, I've penned them a little thank-you card and will pop it into their mailbox on Friday morning.

At the end of a long and tiring day, your Christmas lights

 have brightened my heart

and lifted my flagging spirits.

Thank you for decorating with such care and for

showing all of us 

how bright the spirit of the season can be.

 

Love,

A Fellow Bellevillian

 

 

This is not the house I saw, but it's awesome, too.
This one belongs to some friends of mine
who create this joyful masterpiece every year.
Thanks, Kay Family!

 

And you?

Is there a Christmas Family in your world?

When do you start decorating for the holidays?