Do They Know It's Christmas? (Or--in July--"Do They Know It's No Longer Christmas?")

Yes, so I stole borrowed a lyric ("Do They Know It's Christmas"). The point is, I have to believe our neighbors (and dog) frequently ask themselves this.

I could make excuses here . . . we haven't been home this year . . . we've been prepping the boat . . . we're not going to be home for Christmas anyway . . . whatever.

Let's just take a tour, shall we?

First, we have this mysterious plant that Mike mows down every year but somehow comes back well-manicured shrub in Sloane & Mike's front yard.


Gee, what's hiding behind those branches?


Pulling on the not-so-natural-looking white cord reveals this.


You mean to say that you can't tell what that is? It's our exterior Christmas decoration, a snowflake, of course.


Where did this snowflake come from? The chimney, of course.


Closer inspection reveals . . .


Now, let's take a look inside.











At first, you might think where the heck do these people live? that we did actually make a little effort to decorate this year. Until learning that these things somehow managed to stay out all year long. Yes, that would be December 2006-2007.

Now, here is the decorating we've actually done this year:



And not just that, but we did it before Thanksgiving. Right around the same time that we observed this was still sitting out. And still is. On display. For all the world to see.


Now, I will leave you all two to ponder this question: What are the odds Mike & Sloane will manage to send out Christmas cards this year?