Not the best picture of this year’s lights…but the only picture before they were covered in snow.

(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 49)

I was all set this week to tell you about my Christmas decorating for this year.

Which doesn’t sound all that exciting now that I write it down.

But it’s new, which is kind of exciting.

I changed a lot this year.

And then it snowed a bunch early this week and the weather and everything it affected became the story of the week.

And the decorations were certainly one of the things it affected.

So I couldn’t tell you about something else this week even if I tried.

Last year, when I put away the Christmas decorations, I did a little purge.

It was actually a little embarrassing - half of the lights strung up outside last year died on me before the end of the Christmas season. So instead of messing with the lightbulbs to try to get one more year out of some of the lights, I tossed them. Same thing with the light-up wreath we hung on the door that only lit up half the time anymore.

I went to a craft store in the days after Christmas and I found some good deals and bought a new string of lights, some light-up candy canes, and I figured I would get a new something for the door the following Christmas.

Which was this Christmas.

And last week I did buy a new wreath that lights up multi-colored.

We came back from New York for Thanksgiving on Friday night, and I spent most of Saturday getting the lights up. (Since this year also had the new fencing for the yard, I had a different area to play with as well.)

I was really happy with the different look - the new candy canes were very cool.

Usually I take one picture of the lights from the curb to get a view of how it all looks…but I started to not feel so great Saturday night and I didn’t do it.

Then on Sunday it started snowing something fierce…and as I took the garbage to the curb I figured I might not have another chance to take a picture of the lights. That’s the picture you see above.

It’s not a great picture…but it may be the last time this Christmas season that you can see all the lights, since most of them are now buried in snow.

I did some re-decorating inside the house too.

Christmas decorating is usually when I do the best cleaning around the house - this year I moved a bookcase that had been in our living room for almost 15 years and it has really opened up the space. I did it mostly because I think we need a different tree placement this year because of the dog. As it turns out, it’s going to result in a year-round improvement to the space.

And luckily, the snow can’t ruin the indoor decorations.

Writing

*The snow days on Monday and Tuesday (mostly unexpected - I did not realize until Sunday morning that we were going to be dealing with that much snow) kind of impacted my work schedule. Not so much that my routine was upended by the presence of Kathy and the girls at home (it was)…but more so the fact that I just had to do so much shoveling and not writing.

Comedy

*I am not getting out lately as much as I had hoped for early December. I will hopefully do better at that soon, but for now I have the December edition of Comedy Night at Exhibit ‘A’ coming up this weekend. There are still a few tickets available - you can get them at this link.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

*We ushered in the Christmas season on Saturday night by watching ‘Elf’, and then with the snow day the girls watched ‘Christmas Vacation’ on Monday. They were going to watch something like ‘The Santa Clause’ on Tuesday afternoon but as I was looking through the On Demand options I spotted ‘Matilda’, the movie. (Loyal readers will remember this was the musical in which my oldest daughter participated a couple of weeks ago.) So the girls watched that and I was actually getting some work done at that time but popped in every so often to check it out because it was a really enjoyable movie. The girls liked it, and I thought it was quite sweet. Glad we took that one-afternoon break from this month of Christmas movies.

Thoughts On Dog Ownership

*Tate loved the snow…mostly she loved just shoving her face into it and eating it. She was not as consistent as usual going to the bathroom in it…so I had to shovel her some spaces to do so. Am I spoiling her? Maybe. But she deserves it.

Notes

*Last year, leading up to Christmas, I posted some videos on Facebook about finding an elf in my mailbox and then counting down to Christmas. You may remember this. It was incredibly silly…but it made people laugh and that’s what I often aim to do. Anyway, at the encouragement of my daughters, I strung those videos together and created a very entertaining 15-minute video that includes each of the aforementioned elf videos and some out-takes. I think you might like it - and I think your kids will love it. So if you care to check that out, you can click here. It’s good family viewing and might even become the next ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ where you organize your whole December around watching it. Who knows.

*Maybe you already knew about that video because you follow me on Twitter or you Like the Facebook page. If not, the links are there for you to do something about it.

*Running update: Did pretty much my first-ever winter weather run on Saturday morning. It was with Team Framingham - you know, where I’m the long shot underdog story. (One person came off the waitlist this week! Nine more to go!) Anyway, this team training run was through the hills in Newton - I’m told we ran Heartbreak Hill, but I don’t know which one exactly that was. It was an 8-mile run (which was actually more than 8-and-a-half by the time we ran to the route), and it was 25 degrees when we started, and it was snowy and slushy on the ground. And I did it, with very minimal walking. And I reflected afterwards that even if I don’t run a marathon this year, I’m certainly far above where I was as a runner even very recently. I’m probably going to write some more about this soon.

*Incidentally, it occurred to Kathy and me afterwards that this weekend was when, if everything had fallen our way, I would have been running the marathon in Memphis, Tennessee. Hard to believe I would have been prepared for that.

*I should also tell you, since I told you about it a couple of weeks ago, I have missed a couple of days of push-ups since I published that Sunday Paper. I told you about when I missed it on the very busy musical day, but then when I was sick following Thanksgiving I just couldn’t do it one day. And there was also Thanksgiving Day, since we were up so early to go to the parade I didn’t do it beforehand…and then when we got home I just ate my face off and was in no condition to do push-ups without probably also throwing up.

*I sure went quickly this year from being the cranky old guy watching the leaves fall to the cranky old guy watching the snow melt.

*We bought a tree on Saturday, and I put it up, and so far so good with Tate not tearing it down. It’s a small-ish tree, this way if she does something to destroy it it won’t be a terrible disaster.

*Are you the type of person who pays attention to things like the Sunday Paper numbering system? If not, you can stop reading here, I guess. If so, hard to believe we’re about to flip to another Roman numeral year, huh? The past few years, I think, we’ve done a mailbag as one of the final Sunday Papers of the year. I don’t know if I’m going to do that this year…though maybe I should. I don’t know. Throw a comment on this Sunday Paper on the Facebook page if you have a question you want me to address in the year-ender and maybe I’ll do it. I need to look up what I even did for the last Sunday Paper of the year - I know it was mailbag and then something else. Maybe goals? Anyway, I might switch it up this year…just like the decorations! Look at that. Full circle.