Christmas lights

How many of you go and drive around looking at Christmas lights? My parents are here visiting and they’re going to spend the winter with me, which I am absolutely thrilled about. We went around tonight and looked at all the lights in my neighborhood. My neighborhood association, The Block House Creek Neighborhood Association, awards Grand Prize, First Place and Runners Up winners to folks who have amazing light shows for the holidays.

Here is this year’s Grand Prize winner:

They had their lights synchronized to music, which always blows me away. You pull up in front of the house and tune your radio to a certain station and their lights are synced with the music on that station. It’s truly amazing and I could sit and watch it all night long! We also found another home who had the synchronized lights, which was equally amazing and they were a Runner Up winner.

I’m so excited that I was able to share this with my folks. My dad has said numerous times over the last week how grateful he is that I put up a Christmas tree for them because he thinks it will be his last. Tonight he commented that he probably wouldn’t see lights like this again. It breaks my heart to hear him say that but I’m so happy to have been able to share this with them.

Do you guys enjoy the Christmas lights? Do you decorate outside, inside or both? Do you drive around to look at Christmas lights?

It’s Christmas Eve 2014. I spent a lovely evening with friends, eating pizza, drinking rum & cokes and sharing stories. Then we went out and drove around the neighborhood searching for the winners of our subdivision’s Outdoor Decorating Contest.

I snapped a few pics of the ones that we found:

I loved the one that was set to music, perfectly synced up to a specific radio station playing Christmas music. The best light-show was when the Trans Siberian Orchestra came on. Love that music! Below is a video of one of my favorites, Trans Siberian Orchestra’s holiday song, “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo”:

Speaking of music, this evening I heard a sound that is absolutely music to my ears: I had just fed the dogs their dinners — I have nine dogs here right now: seven Greyhounds, a Whippet and a Lab mix — and I stood in the kitchen waiting while they finished. It was so quiet except for the crunch-crunch munch-slurp sounds coming from every corner of the house, happy dogs chowing down. It was an absolute symphony of contentedness!

Tomorrow morning I’m going to continue the tradition that I started several years ago. Many of you know that while most people are spending Christmas with their families, I’m here at home watching everyone else’s dogs. Dogsitting is what I do for a living and missing holidays is just the nature of my business. So instead of opening presents on Christmas morning, I scramble up a couple dozen eggs and each dog gets a scoop of scrambled eggs on top of their breakfast, complete with a Merry Christmas kiss on top of their head when I set their bowls down.