It's Nov. 27 and you-know-what is on the way!

     

Grandkids -- Brady Hansen, Collin Duax and
Hailey Hansen -- play cards at our house on  Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas lights ready to be used as decorations.

    Saturday afternoon was sunny and warmish in rural Scott County, Iowa, and yours truly stayed busy putting up Christmas lights. This is several days earlier than normal.

    Daughter Kirstin Rodewald gets credit for getting the Bakers in gear about a month ago. Like others, we have been ordering gifts online, shopping locally, and basically getting ready for Christmas Day on Saturday, Dec. 25.

    Steve and I do enjoy hosting Thanksgiving dinner and we did that, kind of on late notice. We were going to Walcott, but a family member became ill and it was re-scheduled for our house. Luckily I had already started cleaning the house so it all was good. We had several family members stop by and watched a lot of football.

    Plus, the others brought all the food except the turkey, which I had purchased. That made Thanksgiving very easy.

    On Nov. 27, I put away all the autumn decor and hauled out container after container of Christmas lights, snowmen, angels, Santa Claus and more. I bought a Christmas train when the youngest granddaughter was born (Myla Rodewald, now almost 3 years old!). That did interest the baby the last time she was here at Christmas, in 2019.

    I don't know how other married couples handle the decorations but I like to do all the outdoor lights. I love being outdoors in the first place and it's a no-brainer.

    These days -- with no regular job -- I can tackle the Christmas lights when the weather is good. Several homes are already lit up in our neighborhood.

    We will be, too, in another week or two. Today I started with an easy project: The upper deck, which I decorate with red-only LED lights. I have two strings of red lights that have lasted for years but I need a third string for this part of the house. I bought another string that lasted a long time -- until last year. I replaced it yet again, and it doesn't work. Of course!

    It's almost a cliche; you get all the lights organized and put up, and the middle string is out. I didn't even test it first, because I knew it was a recent purchase. Yikes!

    LED lights date from 1907, when a British experimenter came up with the idea. It wasn't developed at first, but by 1998-99, the LED lights started getting very popular, according to Christmas Light Source, online. These days it's the type of Christmas light you can buy.

    Back in the day, my dad, Emery Cox, used to decorate with lights, probably incandescent lights. I remember big Christmas lights strung outside our home in Edina, Minn. in the 1960's. 

    Dad was a smoker in those days and was never a patient man. He'd fuss, cigarette in his mouth, and tussle with the cords of lights, getting my brother to help him. 

    Think: Clark Griswold.

    When daughter Kirstin was young, our driveway was lined with short-at-the-time Linden trees. I strung white lights on those trees, using a long-handled device we own. The Linden trees are now 35-40 feet tall and that's not feasible anymore.

    These days I string the lights in bushes in front of the house, and in a few other places. There's a Christmas tree for the front of the house and I have one for our dock, out on the lake. I have yet to decide how to make those spots look pretty at night.

    Everything I do has to be secure, because we get strong winter winds and storms out here in the country. I used bungee cords, and a solid brick, today for the deck project.

    I don't know about you, but after I get these lights up and working, I walk outside at night to see how they look. 

     For now, I've ordered a hanging Star light, for the porch, and will of course be shopping for yet another string of red-only lights for that troublesome spot on the deck.