Ho! Ho! Ho!!!

I usually don't start decorating for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. I avoid the Black Friday shopping mania like the plague. It is probably a good thing to do this year with all of the flu germs floating around.

Anyway, this year I made a small exception....Pardon the pun....Tessie has been begging me to do another holiday on the porch. Since I am not decorating for Thanksgiving this year and also not cooking, I decided that we would just skip turkeys made from gourds and the falling leaves. I know that Tessie won't help rake the leaves afterwards and she would just chase and harass the turkeys. Christmas was the next logical choice.

I went to work this morning and dug out a string of thirty six chasing lights that I purchased a couple of years ago at K mart. They were for one of those plaster villages that are popular. I never got into those, but they do have a lot of useful accessories. As soon as I got the lights up around the eaves, Tessie "helped" unravel the tinsel. Then, living dangerously and walking a tightrope(porch railing), she helped me string it along to cover the cords of the lights.

It's too bad you can't see them too well in the photo. They even have a control for how fast you want them to chase. Really cool.

By this time, Tessie was really getting into the spirit of the season and decided that the cushions on the wicker shouldn't look so summery. I found her on the floor with the cushions for the chair. She had already finished the settee. She wrapped the cushions like little packages and secured them on the back with masking tape. Not to neat, but no one will see the bottom and it will hold for the month that it needs to be there.

Red and green. That's the ticket. Nice and traditional. None of the chartreuse and hot pink that I have been seeing everywhere this year. Shades of the sixties!

After she finished those and got them back where they belong, we hung a wreath on the door and curtains to match the pillows in the windows.

She put a sled beside the front steps, just in case....Yeah. Right. It's going to snow on Christmas Day in Tucson. As long as I have lived here it has only snowed once on Christmas. Sometimes it's even been known to be hot enough to wear shorts and a tee shirt. Then there was the year that it snowed on Easter, but that's another story. Oh well. Let her dream.

She even put out a plate of cookies and a cup of hot chocolate for Santa before she went back to her place to clean up. Then she had the nerve to accuse me of eating them!

Tessie has high hopes of being on Santa's "nice" list.....Maybe we should take a vote on that one. Naughty or nice? Hmmmmmm........Let's see. On one hand, how many times has she gotten the better of Zar with trickery this year? On the other hand, she is very, very kind to the animals around here. But then on the third hand.....No. Let's not go there.....

Let's just say "You had better watch out, Tessie! Santa is watching......There are 33 days till the 9(counting Rudolph)tiny reindeer start tap dancing on the roof."

See you tomorrow. P.S. Sorry this is so late! We just spent 4 hours at the vet. Widget is OK but needs some work done.