Light the lights

My father-in-law loves Christmas. He truly lives for the season all year. He plans out where the lights will go and where the rest of the decorations go. He has the blow ups of Santa, Rudolph, Frosty and various others. It is, to say the least, very festive outside their house. They live two blocks down the street from us so we can see when they have their lights on. It always looks good in the snow.

The year that Turbo was a baby-seven months at Christmas-Papa and Nana were moving and could not put up Christmas lights. Papa decided that Turbo could not miss out on lights so he came and set up lights on our lawn. It looked like Christmas came and threw up on our yard. There was no plan just blow-ups and lights all over. We got lots of looky-loos that year.

There have been years when Papa has dressed as Santa and handed out candy canes to the people driving by to look at his lights. Turbo was three the last time he did this. We told Turbo we were going to see Santa but when he got within ten feet of "Santa" Turbo yelled "That's not Santa, that's Papa!!" He was quite offended and disappointed. We told him Papa was helping Santa out. Can't pull one over on that kid.

I think it drives Papa nuts that we don't do a lot of outside decorating, but I honestly don't think our wiring could handle it. He has tried loaning us blow-ups but we just don't get into it like he does. This year the weather has been less that friendly for outside decorating unless you started in November. We will do something inside around the windows but that's all I think.

At least we can enjoy what he does. He puts thought and effort into it and it usually looks good when he does. He doesn't go overboard like some houses featured on TV--not because he can't but because Nana keeps him in check. Does anyone else do the big blow-ups or just the lights? What does the outside of your house look like?