Blah Humbug!

Perhaps my expectations are too high.

It is December and Christmas is coming. I am the Queen of Holidays. People drive past my house on the Tacky Tour, just waiting to see what crazy concoction I'll come up with next. One year it was lit up pink flamingos. Another time we crisscrossed the yard with so many different strands of lights it looked like a runway...leading a drunk to veer off the road and trench the lawn, perhaps under the delusion that we were an all-night convenience store.

Last year we made giant balls of chicken wire wrapped in lights and spent hours crafting ingenious ways to launch them high into the trees. It was our first Christmas in this house and we were all the way live.

Perhaps that is why the neighbors immediately listed their house for sale. When it didn't move they renovated it and the day after Thanksgiving, they put it up again. I bet they are dreading Christmas next door to the Griswalds.

But I have not put so much as one light up outside and very few inside. As soon as I get myself psyched to go to it, something happens and the wind just leaves my sails. And when I get down, it's not pretty.

I miss my Dad something awful, especially when things are bad. It's a chicken and egg kind of thing- which came first, feeling awful or missing Dad?