Christmas Prep!

I am having the hardest time getting into the Christmas Spirit when it is so hot out. Usually I am freezing my ass off putting up lights and decorations and this year I had to worry about sunburn!

We decided to put the tree on the balcony, it seems that a lot of people here put the tree outside. At first it seemed too wierd for me, but we use the balcony like a living room so now I am OK with it. In fact we almost NEVER use the living room except to watch TV, so we will see the tree more on the balcony. It was fun to decorate it outside with the birds and the butterflies flying by, but so strange to see my flowers blooming next to it. I have always lived in the NJ/PA area so I am used to it being really cold for Christmas.

The lights looked spectacular at night and we can see the tree from our bed. The downside is that every bug in the valley can too so we had a living display of moths and such fluttering around the lights. Mario let me know that we will have to peel them off of the ornaments when we put the tree away. Nice - not! He also reminded me how happy the spiders will be to have the tree as a home. I really wish he would have mentioned all this sooner lol, the tree may have gone in the living room after all.

The stores are now staying open on Sundays woo hooo another shopping day! There are all these little shed like things for sale in the nurseries. Mario told me that they are for nativity scenes. Apparently that is the decoration of choice here. There are tons of lights too. It is really cool how everyone decorates for Christmas. We drove around visiting family this weekend, and the poorest of neighborhoods still had decorations and lights. I was worried that I would miss the glitz of the US, but nope! They do it big here too!

It's just wierd seeing snowmen decorating the houses and grass. I am thinking most people have never seen one in person. So the tree and most of the decorations are up - let the season begin!