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It’s been looking a lot like Christmas

I usually grimace around Thanksgiving when I hear or see reports of people already having their homes decorated inside and out for Christmas, the shopping all done, the presents all wrapped and under the tree, the cookies baked and iced.

Probably already thinking about how to spend Valentine’s Day, yes?

If there’s a time of the year to feel extra inferior if you’re living on “Slackers Street,” instead of “All Done Already Avenue,” it’s December, “the m-o-s-t won-der-ful timmmeee of the yearrrrrr.” Take it away, Andy Williams.

My philosophy typically has been, hey, let the turkey digest, will ya’? What’s the rush? Relax. All in good time, my little pretty.

This year, though, something weird has been happening.

I’m not quite myself.

My early decorating is proof of that, something I usually leave until deadline pressure settles in, which is when I do my best work. Or at least it’s when I get stuff done because I’m all out of other options.

So here it is, Sunday, Dec. 4th, and already I have had three Christmas trees up and decorated for a week. A week!

Somebody take my temperature.

The butterfly tree is done, fluttering just fine.

The cowboy, cowgirl, horse, western-themed tree is giddy-up up.

And the miscellaneous tree is done with a capital D, there in all its splendor with a mixture of through-the-years decorations — everything from ornaments from when the kids were little to bulbs with a message, including Better Half’s golf ball bulb with the poignant inscription “Christmas tees me off.”

Actually there are four trees up, counting Better Half’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree, the one-bulb, no-lights wonder.

Weirder yet is the ease with which all these trees went up, all without incident.

I had carefully put things away after last Christmas, which probably made a bit of a difference compared to other years of throw it in the boxes, throw them in the closet, forget about it all for the next 12 months.

And the strings of lights — no lie here — practically wrapped themselves around the tree, all of them working and wondrously untangled of their own accord.

Imagine the theme from “The Twilight Zone” playing now. I can’t explain it. The tree lights, not the song.

Better Half exhibited moderate interest at the way-ahead-of-schedule Kiaski Christmas 2016 was unfolding.

He wondered aloud why interior decorations were done, the front porch next on the list for a magical makeover.

“I just want to be ready for company, honey,” I told him.

“Company?” he said, his moderate concern elevating. “What company?”

“You know, drop over and see the Christmas trees kind of company, sweetums,” I said.

Better Half brightened.

“My Charlie Brown tree does look extra good this year, doesn’t it?”

(Kiaski, a resident of Richmond, is a staff columnist and features writer for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times and community editor for the Herald-Star. She can be contacted at jkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)

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