Why bother taking the Christmas lights down when you just have to put them back up next year.

I don't know if it is because I was born 4 days before Christmas or because of the traditions that my parents came up with or that I was almost named Christmas, but it is my favorite time of year. And Christmas was always such a big deal in our house. Before the Thanksgiving leftovers were put away the Christmas decorations came out. And my parents went all out. Lights, santas, 3 ft candy canes, Manger scene, wreaths,candles in the window,animation figures in the yard , you get the idea. My dad preferred the traditional decorations with a green tree decked out in all our homemade ornaments and tinsel. However, my mom, being the artist that she is liked to experiment with unique, artsy looks. One year in the early 80's she decided to decorate the tree to match the living room. Normally this would be fine but our living room was black, silver and glass. The sofa's were black velvet with silver and glass end tables. Much to my dad's horror my mom found a silver Christmas tree that spinned when turned on. And she decorated it with black and silver balls. Luckily for daddy she still put his traditional tree up in the family room....

My daddy always went with tradition... He always read Twas The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve ( and still does to this day), set out cookies for Santa, went looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve, had a big Christmas dinner at my granny's house with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins on Christmas Day and hanging stocking on the fireplace... Only problem is we didn't have a fireplace. But that didn't stop my daddy. He turned a bar into a fireplace( complete with fake bricks, fake logs but real stocking. That we proudly hung on our "fireplace" and pretended to warm our hands on. My parents went to no end to have a traditional family Christmas. Many years later when we moved to Florida, our house had a real fireplace. But as irony would have it ,that first Christmas it was 85 degrees. But that did not stop my dad. He was determined to finally have a real fire on Christmas Eve. So my first Christmas in Florida I remember all of us sitting around in our shorts with all the ceiling fans on, sweating , but we were happy to do it just to see how happy my daddy was to finally get his real fire in his real fireplace on Christmas