So we find ourselves in a pretty weird place.

Instead of making our list and checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty and who's nice, The Chows and I are reconfirming hotel reservations and theatre ticket purchases as we are not going to spend Christmas here at Bellemaison. Told you it was a weird thing that's going on. We'll fly from here to London, shake off the jet lag and see Billy Elliott and Mary Poppins in the West End and then hop down to The Eternal City, where we have tickets for midnight mass at Vaticano. The Home Office. San Pietro himself. We're pretty excited but at the same time confused. Good thing we have the new kids next door.

Last year, Mac, Ella, Sunny and Bobby moved in. We love those guys! Ella can talk about 350 words a minute. Mac is a real action man: jumping, hopping, swinging, moving. Sunny is my friend who waves and waves, leans out of her car seat in the mini van and waves--I'm 300 yards away and this merry Sunshine still waves at me every chance she gets. The Incredible Hulk could be driving my car and you wouldn't know because the windows are tinted very dark and this little blond confection waves like crazy, because she knows it's me. Her twin brother, Bobby, just grins and stays close to Ella; never takes his eyes or his smile off you. Just grins. Widely. We*love*these*kids.

So. We changed out our 'Tara' Christmas decorations outside. Totally went against the grain with the new concept, too. Wholly committed to the New Way and the New Age here at Bellemaison as we gave all the former outside lights, bows, wreaths, candles, trees and miscellany away. We have a whole new deal going here. With those other neighbors, we went with stated elegance appropriate to the architecture of the house. It was Williamsburg meets Philadelphia meets Greenville and did I mention we have salmon real close as we are NORTH of the Mason-Dixon Line? look. People would stop me in the store and tell me how much they loved my Christmas decorations. So much, I stopped going to the store. Now they have something new to adjudicate because starting here and starting now, we are CandyLand at Bellemaison.

Yup. We took the pink fright lights from Halloween and held them back this year and put them up on all the front eaves this weekend. We purchased 8 foot lighted Nutcrackers from Costco in September (wince) (mea culpa). They flank the drive-in garage doors. We have candy canes and peppermints lining the entire driveway. We have gumdrops across the entire face of the porch. The windows are framed in peppermints with blue outlines. We have glisteny icicles hanging off all the windows sills. We have the same pepermints and candy canes ringing the front door. Colored twinkle lights blanket the lavendar hedge. We have a big wreath with lit peppermints hung on the street chimney at the bottom of the driveway with a big fluffy red and white striped bow.

The one thing that perplexes us still is the lollipops we need across the flower bed lining the front porch. We need 5 foot tall lollipops that we can plant in a merry inspection line. Is there some other way besides 24 inch styrofoam circles wrapped in clear cellophane? I am having trouble locating the styrofoam; it either needs to surface or I need to come up with a new idea.

So Advent is upon us. The anticipation has arrived. We wait in hope and faith.

It IS the most wonderful time of the year, isn't it?

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA