Sad little Minion and his faithful dog friend, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Can we talk about Christmas decorations?

I like seeing the houses in my neighbourhood all dolled up for the holidays. I find it cheerful, especially on gloomy days like today when Jack and I are dealing with bad weather (5°c with heavy rain.) Some decorations, though, are better than others, and I might be an old grump for complaining about this, but I don’t like inflatable lawn balloons. Most of them are powered by pumps and require hydro to run, and so most people who have them only run them in the evening, which seems smart and thrifty. The trouble is that these balloon decorations turn into limp puddles of plastic that look like shit when they’re not operating, which is most of the time. I think they look sad and messy.

I don’t do a lot of decorating, but I do did have a set of LED lights built into the railings when we rebuilt the porch 2 years ago. They were connected to a wi-fi controller inside the house and were operated by an app on my phone and tablet. I say were, not are because 2 nights ago someone disconnected them from the controller and tore them off one side of my porch. They’re no good to anyone without the controller, so it’s just vandalism, and it will be expensive to repair. It isn’t the first time we’ve had things stolen from our front yard. We live near a high school, and kids will be kids. Usually, we put the nice stuff in the fenced back yard, but I never suspected they would tear apart the housing and steal a built-in LED light strip that is of no use to someone else. Our guard dog (Jack) is older now and sleeps hard. I think it’s time to invest in a home camera system and a nice big sign that says, “Smile. You’re on Camera.”

I try to live in a state of gratitude and maintain a cheerful disposition. Some days it’s more complicated than others.

This Santa isn’t connected to hydro. I think he just needs a good blow and then insert the plug to keep the air in. No daily pumping required. Good Santa.