Unplugging

Relatively nice evening. Temp at 11:21 p.m. is a warm 38 degrees. No freezing tonight.

I trek outside the front door, my feet snugly tucked into my $2.99 slippers from Wal-Mart as I step onto the front porch to unplug the christmas decor that currently adorns our 100-year old house on main street, small town, Oklahoma.

I unplug the yellow cord, which puts to sleep both the tall and short vintage plastic Santa figures that my wife is so fond of. Tall Santa is fading fast, the jolly red of his suit and cheeks now a pasty pale pink, as time and use have weathered him to a lighter shade of his former self.

Short Santa manages to stand tall in the winds that nightly whip down the main highway, his position secure in the knowledge that the socks we filled with rocks and dirt are safely tucked away inside his and all of our figures plastic poly-formed feet.

I unplug the red cord which darkens the three plastic snowmen, all of them wondering how they could all possess such distinct facial expressions.
"Happy Snowman" to my left, "Mildly Jocular Snowman" to my right, and "Sad Clown-faced Snowman" hanging out close to the doorway.

The main strings of lights hung below the eaves of the front go dark as well. I prefer the big, old, colorful bulbs to the contemporary look of the hanging icicles, or the saturated hues of the rope lights, or the overpowering brilliance of the walls of twinkling, gigawatt strings of white lights.

Red, green, blue, white, orange.
Red, green, blue, white, orange.
Red, green, blue, white, orange.

I watch the inflatable penguins, in the inflatable snow dome deflate, as I unplug the green and final plug. This was a recent addition to our holiday menagerie, and we seem to be the only one's in our small town to be proudly displaying it on our front lawn. If you've never seen one, look here.

Shut up, it was a gift from a brother-in-law who seems as fond of presenting these types of thing to his sister, as he does tormenting me with these very same things.

The final light display is inside, so I bid my fellow front porch sitters a fond winter's night, and head back inside, my feet cowardly seeking more warmth than my Wal-Mart slippers can apparently provide.

Our 9-foot fake Douglas Fir sits in the front room, it's 1800 pre-lit twinkling white lights filling the large 6"x 6" plate glass window that dominates the front view of the large room. My big toe emerges from the warmth of the discount store bought slipper to adeptly hit the switch on the power strip.

The fir descends into darkness.

Just another night's end in the life of the kitschy Christmas decor we love so dearly.