Due to the delightful weather, Ben and I put up the Christmas lights on the house today.  For someone on the first day of his vacation, Ben has been very busy.  This morning, I went out to do some spot raking, prior to mowing the lawn with the mulching mower (so good for the environment) to remove leaves.  Normally, I just do the mower, but I had let too many leaves land undisturbed for it to look at all decent afterwards, not to mention there is only so much the mulching mower can handle.  Unfortunately for Ben, the next-door neighbor was raking his yard when I went out there, and he came over to help me.  The plan had been for Ben to finish feeding Becca and bring her playpen outside, while he sat on our front bench, playing on the laptop.  I would of course be doing the work.  Because I wanted to.  Not because he wouldn’t do it.  However, Ben felt that he would look bad to the next-door neighbor and the other men in the neighborhood, so we ended up raking the entire yard and then he mowed the whole thing.  Front only.  We don’t feel the need for the back yard to look nice.  Which you would know if you ever saw it.  There were so many leaves in the front yard, that they filled 20 yard bags.  Not that we had 20 yard bags.  Ahhh, the beauty of common ground.  Especially the one behind our back yard.  It is fully wooded and has a stream.  If you look closely in winter, you can see the ghosts of Christmas trees past, courtesy of the Viercks.

After prettying up our yard, we went ahead and put up the lights, as I said earlier.  The lights were on while they were being arranged.  As soon as we were done, they were turned off.  This is all good and proper.  It is not yet the appropriate season, after all.

Upon my return from picking up a healthy, well-balanced evening meal of McDonald’s, I saw nine houses that had their lights up and on.  These homeowners (or perhaps renters) are clearly in violation of the seasonal policy.  While it makes sense to put up lights this weekend, especially as there is a chance of snow flurries on Monday, that lights should not be illumiated prior to Friday. 

I am very distressed over this.