By John Simpson

As the thermometer points near 80 degrees on the day after Thanksgiving it is time to start getting ready for my favorite winter holiday. I previously wrote a column urging people to focus on Thanksgiving and to not jump the gun on getting the house decorated for Christmas. Throw that out now.

Get the Christmas stuff out of the attic. Untangle all the lights that somehow got tangled, cuss the ornaments that managed to break while they sat in a box for a year, and just go ahead a get a new tree stand because the old one probably has a lean to it. 

Put up the tree, hang the stockings, and try to out-do your neighbor with lights. Personally, I prefer colored Christmas lights to the old fashioned white lights. Some people think they’re tacky, but I think they look better. Nobody every went home and said “man that house with white lights really stood out from that other house with white lights.” White lights can be used around a deck in the backyard though to provide some cool lighting for when you have family and friends over. I would say they make a nice compliment around a fire pit, but with the burn ban and the unseasonably hot weather I don’t think anyone will be having any fires.

I’m not one for inflatables though. I like creativity. I mentioned in my pre-Thanksgiving column that one year growing up my father and I made a life-sized Santa out of some coat hangers, cotton, grocery bags and a costume. We hung it to where he was dunking a basketball on the goal out front of my home. Try to think outside of the box this year, Christmas should be fun not something that you just do.

Make it a tradition with your kids, like my dad and I did growing up. Right after Thanksgiving dinner we always got the Christmas stuff out and started planning what we were going to do. We always tried to be a little different than last year, not necessarily meaning more stuff, just different stuff. The roof was always lined with colored lights, and the magnolia tree in our yard always had some type of decoration hanging from it. It does not take much to decorate for Christmas so I hope everyone will partake this year.

Aside from helping my dad, one of my faovirte childhood memories was riding around looking at other people’s lights. So, seeing as how this is my first Chrismas in Bainbridge, I hope to have a lot to look at this year.