By:
The Dude on the Right
My
2006 Christmas display is done.
Thank God.
And I may never do it again.
I
finally got all of the fake snow I needed, but I think I overdid it. I
broke the head off of my new horse riding dude, but luckily it was a clean break
since I don’t have any glue – His head rests gently on his body. The train
doesn’t work like it should (damn cow-catcher keeps catching on the track joints
and derailing it, and the tracks need a good cleaning so even when the train did
run it didn’t have a lot of umph). The windmill bent so it doesn’t rotate.
I think I had some soap residue in the cup I used to fill the wood mill scene
because it bubbles a bit. And I couldn’t find a sniper dude to man the new
mountain post (and it just occurred to me that I should have gone to the toy
store and picked up some green toy soldiers – that would have worked perfectly).
I should have picked up some more "flat" snow to cover my window blinds. I
broke the head off of Sally from Peanuts, one of my Christmas Tree decorations,
when the tree was "side heavy" and fell over a bit when I was trying to plug it
in. The addition of the waterfall didn’t come out nearly as cool as the
waterfall I had when I was managing a Radio Shack. And as I look at the
waterfall backdrop now, it looks like a crazed animal, ready to eat my village.
The "mountains" I made aren’t very sturdy, so I can’t run the ski-lift.
And yet, another issue…
Some
of my friends say they want to come and see my Christmas display. Sure,
the Christmas display looks cool, but now I have to clean the rest of the
Dude-Pad before any invites are sent.
My Christmas decorating used to be very
simple. I bought a fake tree one year, decorated it, and carried it up the
stairs, to my spare bedroom, still decorated. The next couple of
Christmas’ my decorating took about 10 minutes – I would move an end table in
front of the window, go upstairs and grab my "decorated tree," carry it down the
stairs, put it on the end table, and my decorating was done. Then, for
whatever messed up reason (I’m blaming a friend from high school), I decided to
start my own holiday village, and now, rather than taking 10 minutes to be
festive, it takes me days. And it never goes as smoothly as I think it
will.
That’s
why I’m thinking of taking a wide-angle picture.
Yup, getting back to my "lazy
days of Christmas decorating," I’m thinking of taking a nice wide-angle picture
of my Christmas display, getting it enlarged to about 10 feet wide, and next
year, instead of all of this "decorating" crap, just hanging the picture at the
end of my living room, and suddenly the dude-pad will be festive. No more
broken heads, no more trains that derail, no more lame waterfalls looking to eat
my village. Nope, just a giant photograph to unroll at Thanksgiving, and
roll back up again after Christmas.
Life seems to have been so much simpler
when I was young.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!