Christmas at Chez Neumansky 3.0

Now, we've never been really big on the whole Christmas decoration thing...Halloweens our thing. People have always said things to us during Halloween time like, 'Wow, I can't wait to see what your Christmas decorations look like...' and we'd just kinda look at them and smile...we've never really even owned any Christmas decorations until this year.

Not This Year!

Christmas at Chez Neumansky 3.0

Please be kind we've never decorated for this holiday before......and dang buying all this stuff even on sale adds up fast....

Outside Decorations

We replaced the 40W bulbs in the fence post lights with flicker bulbs and then put Santa hats on all the lights. Thank you dollar store for the cheap Santa Hats.

Maybe this should be a recurring theme with us? Pumpkins on Halloween, Santa Hats at Christmas...uh, Bunny Ears at Easter??? Uh, Leprechaun hats on St. Pats day???

Also, copying from Halloween we put a lighted garland all around the perimeter of the front yard...luckily the stuff was seriously on sale at Walgreen's..

We added a ton of decorations from the dollar store to this simple garland to dress it up. We put candy canes on it for people to eat and I don't think a single one was taken!?!?! That sure is a change from the ghetto I tell you what...

BBB had a sale on fancier garland and small wreaths that you can see here also.

Arty Shot...

 

Here's the best attempt at an overall outdoor shot..though we still missed half the decorations...

We also did the lighted tree thing up the walk way that you can see in the picture above.

Wouldn't be Christmas without the Menorah

Or the 'tree in the window' thing.

If you head up the steps to the porch you were greeted with this cheery site.

We tried to make the big incorrect columns look like 'candy canes'. The garland and wreath here were the fancier BBB stuff.

Stepping inside

More fancy BBB garland going up the stairs.

Mrs. Madmadscientist did this really nice thing with the lights.

She wove greenery into the lights and put hung ornaments from them...looked exactly like something out of a fancy catalog like Grandin Road or Frontgate. You can see some of the other lights in the other shots but unfortunately this is the only closeup shot of one of the lights...

 

And of course the Christmas-Solstice tree.

 Look, we even shelled out for a tree skirt.

We went with a color theme. Red, Sliver and white for the tree. We also got a big G-scale train to run around the track..that was my favorite Solstice present.

We even did the very traditional Christmas village on the mantle with our stockings.

But wait, look a little bit closer at that Christmas village....something doesn't seem quite right there...

Yep we have a Nightmare Before Christmas village.  We even got the fake snow blanket and some greenery. This was a hit at night with baby madmadscientist...she loved to inspect all the lighted houses and flick the little vampire boy on a spring on top of one of them.

Nice overall shot of the Christmas room.

We also lit Hanukkah candles

Love this fake fireplace...somehow having it going made things seem more Christmassy.

The final stocking-mantle set-up.

Pre Santa

Post Santa

Check out the eaten cookies, carrots and milk.....definite proof that Santa and the reindeer were there.

Here's something that we shoulda known....

Cats Love Christmas!!!!

Check out this selection of pics showing cats doing what they do best...destroy decorations...

Oh, the indignities that poor Christmas village suffered....

The cats loved the train...

Well that's it.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice to everyone!

Christmas in September!?!?!?!!?

Okay, following up on my Halloween in August post....here's a little something I like to call....

Christmas in September!?!?!? Seriously??? WTF!!!

Went out to my local Costco on Sept 1st to do some shopping....here's what I found.

They had one isle of Halloween Merch out.

One side of an isle of kids costumes.

One side of an isle of adult costumes.

Now, these weren't even full isles..like half isles with candy and flashlights on the other half. No Halloween decorations....

But right next to the Halloween stuff was.... you guess it....

Six fricken full isles of Christmas Stuff...

In September?!?!?!?

Who is excited about buying nativity scenes in September???

I stood around by the nativity scenes for like 10 min...EVERY single person who walked by ~20, had the exact same reaction... ' Christmas Already?!?!' shaking their heads in disbelief...

What about Halloween?

What about Thanksgiving?

There Outta Be A Law!!!!!!!

They can make laws about, just about any darn thing...well there outta be law on holiday decorations and merchandise!

I say, no decorations up and no merchandise out until 30days before the actual Holiday!

That would mean no Halloween stuff out until Oct 1st.

That would mean no Christmas stuff out until the day after Thanksgiving. What ever happened to Thanksgiving anyways?

City Council Members can pass laws right? Or boards of supervisors? I say, everybody emails their local representative and tells them that they are SICK to death of merchants putting out merchandise MONTHS ahead of the holiday.

I'll start, here's a link to the Alameda City Councils contact info. Click on their names to email them.

Contact your local elected official and tell them,

There Outta Be A Law!

Heck, if we can't get the elected officials to get off their duffs and do the right thing we'll make our own law. A referendum or something!

If you feel as I do please pass this on to anyone who might be interested in the message.

Who's with me??? Anyone??? Beullar...? Beullar???