Christmas Lights

Well, I included this picture because I took it with my new zoom camera from the far end of our yard just after a fresh snowfall. I love how the sun is shining on the house and the sky is blue in the background. The weather was bitterly cold (in the single digits) but the sun was out every day for almost a month as a welcome contrast to the cold. The other thing I had hoped to show was the Christmas lights on the house, but they are too small to show up in this picture...only in larger size on my computer.

Along the front of the house above the garage and porch and tracing each of the triangles in front are green Christmas lights. The gutters of our house and the facings of the roof are also green so they blend in really well. The reason I wanted to point this out was for an idea of holidays in Alaska…they put up Christmas lights here in early to mid October because it is too treacherous to do later. Our house still had its Christmas lights on it from last year. We made the mistake of not testing them until after the first snow and found that 4 lights were out. Shaun went and bought the lights and discovered first hand that he would have to wait until May (or June) to replace the three bulbs above the first floor. There is no way to safely get on the ice and snow covered roof pitches to change them. I guess when people can’t take the lights down until June and they have to put them back up in early October, most people here seem to leave them on their houses year round. Shaun says it is a mixed blessing...he hates putting lights up outside, but he also doesn't like them being on the house all the time. He says he is grateful, at the very least, that they aren't the dangling icycle type that are on one of neighbor's homes. AND we did talk him into adding garlands to the front porch, a large wreath, and some colored lights along the porch railing when the temperature warmed up into the 20s.