Out Little Patch Of Christmas...

 I remember something I learned after my father-in-law passed away. The family rallied around my mother-in-law making sure that for the next twelve months, she was with family. That first year is crucial...all those "first" are important to have family around, first anniversary, first holiday season, first everything.

Though, the experience is nothing like that, our family is going through our own "firsts." We had our first Thanksgiving, and now, it's our first Christmas season in the new place. Much of what we're going through is the same...the same people doing the same things, but things like putting up Christmas lights--well, that's different.

It's easy to compare. Our last house was well-suited for outdoor illumination. Even though we never took full advantage of it, we did try and decorate it at Christmas. The porch was fun to string lights and make it look good.

The new house...

We're finding it to be not as easy. First off, it's a traditional house, not like the cabin we lived in before. Short of putting up lights along the roofline, there's not a lot of places to put lights. Plus, we have no yard put in which complicates things. We decided to focus on the small space in front of the house. We set up our inflatable nativity scene and hung some lights above. Tonight, as we returned home from getting a Christmas tree, we were able to see it at night. It was, in a word, unimpressive.

But, that's okay. We can see the lights from inside the house, something we couldn't see from inside at our old house. We know it's not going to be like this every year, but even if it was, the point isn't to "outshine" everyone on the block, it's to remember what the season is all about, and--in my opinion--that's what our lights do, at least, they do for me.