Decked Out and Decking the Halls

For the last few years I have found it difficult to plan a party.  There was a  time when I could think of a million reasons to have a party, get folks over, cook out, whatever. In south Alabama, my life revolved around parties and friends.  The weather in Baldwin County is pleasant most of the winter (unlike North Georgia) and conducive to entertaining.  Even the dreaded months of January and February are made liveable with Mardi Gras and parades and public drunkenness.  My good, but sadly dead, second husband genuinely liked people and loved an audience.  He could always find an excuse to have a good time.  My not so good, last and final husband did not especially enjoy entertaining.  He traveled and when home, wanted down time.  Even before we left South Alabama, he found entertaining to be an invasion of his private time. He preferred his time at home to be on the sofa with me and the dogs. Now I have all the down time I can stand and no dogs on the sofa, so I am having a party.  If you are reading this, you are invited.  I have put lights on everything.  If it could be lit up, it is.  Including me last night.  I have decked the halls, the back porch, the back yard, the garage door.  I am not completely sure why I have so much "spirit" but I have it and I want to share it.  My house is small and I have no doubt that I have invited too many people. In fact, I just invited all of you, so yes, I'm over shooting.  In order to accommodate what I hope to be an over-flowing crowd,  I have wrapped my screened porch in heavy duty plastic sheeting.  I spent several hours up on a ladder yesterday doing this and the entire time I had shades of the l970s when some fine Christian woman suggested to us other, fine Christian women, in her course "Total Woman", that we greet our husbands at the door wearing nothing but a smile and a box of Saran Wrap. Which explains why I was lit.  When young women today watch "Fried Green Tomatoes" they think Fannie Flagg is just being funny.  The 70s almost killed femininity and me.   I hope I get better results with the porch than I did with that wrap.  That was the first disastrous divorce.  Even as I write this, I hear the winds of North Georgia slapping my wrap around.  But in the mist of all this sadness, desperation and financial mayhem,  I am excited over twinkling lights and candy canes and the hope of Christmas.  Even the Bubba Santas of Jasper can not wreck my belief that this will be one of the best Christmases ever.  So if you don't have plans on the l7th and happen by Jasper, which would only occur if you were heading up 515 to Ellijay or Blueridge cause we aren't on the way to anywhere else, please stop in for a cup of eggnog and a holiday cookie and a hug and a wish for the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years.  If you can't stop, honk.