It starts innocently enough. At Cracker Barrel usually. You stop in for biscuits and sweet tea in early October and you notice the nativity scene display.
Okay.
Then Target joins in. Halfway through October they clear all of the masks and plastic daggers out of a back aisle to make room for twinkling lights and giant scarf-clad skiing polar bears.
Eh.
Thanksgiving creeps closer and you head to Michaels in search of a cornucopia for your dining room table. You walk through the doors when what to your wondering ears do you hear, but the sound of Jingle Bells spreading premature Christmas cheer.
Whatever.
Oh friends. I wish I could leave it that. But I can’t. Not by a long shot.
Because do you know what I saw yesterday, when I rounded a corner to head into our cul-de-sac?
I saw a wreath. With lights.
And a freakin’ reindeer.
Kid. you. not.
I mean really. C’mon people.
It’s one thing if you live in snowy Michigan or frigid Wisconsin.
But we don’t.
We live in the desert. Where the temperature just barely dipped below 80 this week.
And suddenly reindeer pop up on the rockscape lawns of the neighbors?
Not to mention the ceiling dangling and window cling-on paper snowflakes at Target. Which, by the way, put me in the exact opposite of the Christmas spirit when they appeared two weeks ago. The day after Halloween mind you.
But at least they have motive. You know, to sell stuff.
Our neighbors?
No motive.
They may just have earned themselves a door prize though.
Because a couple of weeks ago I listed some Christmas yard art on Craigslist.
Namely a giant scarf-clad, skiing polar bear. And a slightly less obnoxious ice skating snowman.
Craigslisters aren’t interested apparently.
Can’t blame them.
We never would have bought them in the first place had our girls not guilted us into it.
But that guilt has run its course my friends.
And my husband is tired of housing those perennially festive friends in our garage.
So he’s proposed a good deed. {A long shot if you ask me}.
He wants to “gift” our festive friends to an unsuspecting neighbor. Sort of like signed, sealed, delivered – they’re yours. Only with out the signed and sealed part.
He thinks it’d be amusing to sneak in under the cover of night and set them up – plugged in and everything.
I tend to agree.
What?
You know that’d be funny.
And, based on our neighbor’s enthusiasm for the season, he thinks they’re prime candidates.
I’d prefer someone who didn’t live, well, the next house over. Two streets down is more my style.
Although the early November reindeer propped on their lawn sways me.
So. Whatdya think?
Should we dare?
