God is awesome! He arranged some ‘bonus’ family time. I usually don’t have my boys on Thursdays, but he knew we needed some crazy, fun, out of the ordinary time together. We ditched homework, house work and everything else we didn’t really want to do.
We went to the hospital to see a friend’s new baby, then to the store to buy candy for our Christmas boo bags. (Christmas boo bags will be explained in a future post) We also bought some hot chocolate and lots of marshmallows, now prepared to start our new family tradition… Santa shooting. Again (from yesterday’s post), this is not with a gun, it’s with a camera. We picked up a couple of the boys friends and took off in the car to look for quirky Christmas yard art and photograph it. Oh, and we had our hot chocolate, each cup with enough marshmallows for six cups.
People in west Frisco don’t seem to enjoy the hazy plastic people yard art, unless it’s in the form of a nativity scene. The west ‘Friskies’, as Hank Stuever calls them, are on the conservative side with yard decor, that is, everything with the exception of lights. There were basically three types of lights. First, the ‘hired’ lights. These people spared no expense in purchasing lights and they were clearly hung by professional elves.
Second, the ‘I have lights on my house because it’s a Christmas expectation’. These lights are sometimes required by the HOA, but probably more often a husband putting up the three strands of lights in an awkward manner to check it off his honey-do list.
Third, the ‘bountiful jumble’. These houses have as many strands of lights as they can possibly place on the outside electrical system without blowing a fuse. These random sets of non-matching lights have strands added every year. Half of the yard is traditional lights, the new strands are the bright LED’s. Basically, they have replicated the WalMart sample light display into their yard. After these people put their lights up, they most likely look up and down the street to be sure they have clearly won the “I have the most lights” contest.
Although I was disappointed not to see yards filled with Christmas weirdness, I can always find a photo opportunity. This one was light painting. Instead of trying to explain this, I’ll just post the photos.
The kids got to play, we learned some new photography skills, but most importantly, we all had some great family and friend fun time. Living differently, a tinselectomy of sorts. More tomorrow…