Me I don’t know when the COVID is in your home, but my husband and I are bouncing off the wall. The problem is that Andy and I are both reproductive haters who take the quarantine guidelines very seriously. Probably a little too serious.idea Gray Gardens No troublesome raccoon problems. We get together with others, go somewhere, and do nothing. Loneliness is a joy, but I want you to know that it’s possible to forget it on Netflix and Chill. When this happens, and when it happens almost every day, we go to analog and entertain ourselves with a spectacular dog walk.
Yes, I know the phrase “magnificent dog walk” is ridiculous, and I’m almost embarrassed to use it, except that our neighborhood is adorable. These people are obsessed with holiday decorations and otherwise make common chores very interesting. With a big blast heart and cupid on Valentine’s Day, leprechauns and lots of shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day, a bunny on Easter, a flag on July 4, a turkey on Thanksgiving, and a giant menora on Hanukkah. Talk about full-on display. .. If you’re like me and don’t like holidays (honestly, who has the time to satisfy all those feelings?), Don’t worry. These people are willing to pay for creating Chicago’s answer to Arcadia. Do you think you know the lush grass? Ha! Think again, sister!
These enthusiastic, full-throttle lawn outbreaks have become our most important distraction during the pandemic. I know how this sounds, but don’t fool you into being two parasols who are determined to crack down on our parasol for an afternoon walk. What this really means is to bounce the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel everywhere in the neighborhood and blame the neighbors.We like to call it an HGTV show that pretends to be our own Gay judges neighborhood.. There are some helpful suggestions, but most of the time they are full of cheeky and occasionally disgusting color commentators.
“Girl, you can’t decorate with these little pumpkins. As you may have heard, size is important!”
“Why don’t you listen to Sweetie Coco Chanel and get rid of at least one concrete angel?”
“Customers. 100 American Flags — In this economy?? “
Catness makes us smirk, and I’m pretty sure, repel early-onset dementia. A big overgrown careless compliment to a house with a fluorescent yellow edging, or Boo Radley, the world’s tallest nutcracker, or a woman pulling weeds with eyebrow tweezers, why keep you healthy? Can’t you?
As time went on, holiday presentations became more and more intense. When I woke up on July 4th, I found that someone had a few blocks of flags in every yard, probably a bit gauche, but nice. Then autumn rolled and it became clear that everyone decided to go to bananas. Halloween looked like Stephen King’s quivering. A witch hanging from a tree, a real granite tombstone, an electric chair mummy with sound effects and professional lighting, a casket, smoke, and a hearse with a cramped corpse. Note that this was all in the 1 yard at the end of our block!
Our neighbors are on the next level, but they wouldn’t have been able to prepare us for their Christmas enthusiasm. It’s hard to exaggerate. An entire street covered with colorful lights, a huge pile of ornaments, a 10-foot blast St. Bernard with a gift in his mouth, a nativity scene, a life-sized snow globe, white lights, flashing lights, There were rotating lights and so on. Many lights.
As the holidays approached, the ornaments became more sensational. One day we were silent and confused as we stared at the newly decorated garden with inflatable Nutcrackers, Santa, polar bears and reindeer. Aside from wind, snow and poor maintenance, the cute collection left a list of each figure in a different direction. They lay scattered in the yard and looked like a group of drunken off-duty characters in a Christmas-themed amusement park. “Of course, for Instagram, you need to take a selfie before this,” I said. He snorted loudly, scared the dog, and took pictures like a jerk.
When I heard the gasping voice, I was trying to upload a photo. I looked up from my cell phone and saw Andy near the house with the giant Christmas dragon. Yes, Christmas dragon. My mouth opened like a cartoon character, and I almost dropped my cell phone. This had to be the most ridiculous Christmas exhibit in Chicago as a whole. “Do you think these people have children, or are they deeply engrossed?Game of Thrones?? ” I asked. While dancing on the sidewalk like a giant air dancer at the car wash, I somehow spit out the word “dracurry”. It did it. We were crying so we laughed hard.
We were creating a real scene, but the red and green dragons are 9 feet high, wearing Santa’s hats, holding huge candy canes in their mouths and hands, and stupid eyes. You need to understand that it was flapping, shining and shining. It was difficult to pull out of this monster, so the dog controlled the situation and dragged us down the street before someone jumped out of the house and yelled at us.
Every day we went down the sidewalk to explore the neighborhood and enjoyed the best and worst of the local Christmas pageants. Then one afternoon we arrived in front of Santa and his reindeer, who occupied most of the grass in front of the bungalows. But before reminding me of insults, I was shocked by the colorful lights of the shrubs — a vintage version of the exact same strand of oversized light bulbs I remember from childhood. I stood fixed there and noticed that I was zapping myself far away until the Christmas past.
“In the year my mother died, we left the Christmas tree for months,” I told Andy. I forgot this fact. Waiting for me in the glitter of these old lights, and it erupted from me like a long dormant volcano. Staring at the shining bushes, I was nine years old again and saw an expired Christmas tree in Arkansas in the 1980s. I don’t know why I didn’t knock down the tree after Christmas. I don’t know why or how the tree passed the New Year.
At the time, I was a baby, but I was too young to fully understand the end of my parents’ death. The most memorable day after her mother died is how excited she was to show off our trees to friends and family who came to the funeral. No one understood it. For them, I was a heart-wrenching little orphan boy with a Christmas tree in February. I know this because I can still see their scary faces. Most of them couldn’t accept it and turned their backs before explaining how fake spray snow was my favorite part. The snow had candles, holly, and snowman-shaped stencils that sprayed everywhere, including trees and windows, when my mom wasn’t looking. Decorating a tree was one of the last activities we did together, and without my mother, I could at least hold onto this tree-shaped monument for a while.
“She died on Valentine’s Day. I remember the trees were still up on St. Patrick’s Day,” I told Andy.
Maybe my dad wasn’t even aware that it was there yet. The holiday decorations belonged to my mom.
When he started dating, my dad ended up getting everything done. At once, the tree, my mother, her stuff, everything was removed from our house. “It happened while I was in school,” I said. “One day, the tree is gone.”
“So do you hate holidays?” My husband asked, and it brought me back to the present. I shot him a healthy amount of side eyes, but I knew he was right. It’s hard to look back at the time, but this neighborhood with its big bright lights and ridiculous Christmas dragons gives me that charm. When walking on the glittering sidewalk, it’s hard not to see that you need to celebrate a holiday.
“What I’m most excited about is seeing who last cleaned up the decoration,” I said. Even though I was fully aware that sadness and many obligations could distract people, I was looking forward to our silly commentary on the late home.
Still, after St. Patrick’s Day, I kept my fingers crossed to prevent the Christmas tree from rising.
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St. Pat’s Day Christmas Tree-Chicago Magazine
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