We seem to be just rocketing from holiday to holiday here. In between, there has been travel, work, and the eviction of squirrels. But the holidays seem to be the big landmarks marking the year.

This will be our first Christmas in the new place. So we will need to spend some time figuring out what it takes to decorate it appropriately. Given the quantity of decorations that we’ve accumulated over the years, you would think we would be well supplied. And yet, with the size of Boo Manor, I’m not entirely sure.

We used to think these were alot of Christmas decorations. Now we’re not so sure.

The Christmas decorations had been stored in the garage crawl space when we lived in Edmonton. Which meant, when it came time to pack the house, out of sight meant out of mind. We both remembered them just as we watched the moving truck drive off in the distance. So, on a subsequent trip to Edmonton, I proceeded to pack them up and ship them eastwards by bus. From there, they were stored in the crawl space above Dianne’s brother’s garage. Where they have stayed until now.

A major stash of lights, courtesy of last year’s post-Christmas sales.

We also took advantage of post-holiday sales last year to stock up on strings of Christmas lights. Meaning, specifically, that we bagged about 24 strings of lights from Walmart for a ridiculously small amount of money.

Today, it’s time to start decorating Boo Manor for the holidays. We’re starting off simply, and we’ll build up from there. But for now, we’ve chosen to decorate the old gate post at the driveway, the porch framing the dining room doorway and the main entrance way to the house. And we have polar bears. Because, well, bears.

The decorating starts easily, courtesy of pre-installed hooks.

You would think that a house the scale of Boo Manor would have plugs outside to deal with this sort of thing. And yet, you would be wrong. Of course, they didn’t actually do Christmas lights back when the house was originally built, but you would figure that someone had installed some exterior plugs in the intervening century or so. Sadly, this was not to be. Fortunately, we had the presence of mind to get an outlet wired during the renovations. So we have one electrical plug. Only one, mind you, but one will have to do for now.

Thirty-one new hooks later, and the dining room porch is starting to look pretty damned festive as well.

There were hooks in place around the main door to hang lights, although for the life of me I do not know how they were plugged in. But that at least made one task a little easier. And the polar bears, once assembled, were easily placed on the lawn. The gate post was wrapped. And that only left the dining room porch to illuminate. There is nothing quite so mind-numbing (or finger-numbing) as screwing thirty-one hooks in place, but fortunately you only have to do it once. And the results are pretty spectacular.

Welcome to Boo Manor. Friendly to bears and lovers of the holidays.

We still have a few more decorations to take care of outside, particularly an exterior tree, but we’ve made a good start. Boo Manor is starting to look festive.