Keeping up with the McJoneses

A weird kind of exhaustion has taken me over for a while; things are OK, in fact things are good, but suddenly I could neither work nor do much else; waking very early, the worst was at 2 am, stomach aches, nausea, all very odd. It's improving.

Just as well for there is much to do on this street.

Perhaps in response to the sheer crud of 2020 people are sticking their Xmas decorations up early, and by heck they take them seriously around here. Because we were new to the area in 2019 I daresay we were forgiven our paltry contribution to the Disco 2000 meets Santa's Grotto shenanigans of the neighbourhood. But we've been here long enough to know the score now; already we're facing life-sized white sequined Dancer and Prancer across the road, where the trees glitter in brilliance throughout the night. 'Ooh!' Says Mum when I sent her photos, 'the deer are lovely! Maybe you could get some!' She doesn't understand the Laws of Christmas which clearly state that you can't just copy other people's seasonal quadrupeds. We can't have standing deer, ours would have to be running or flying or something else entirely like bears or penguins. Even my husband, rational as he is, has fallen prey to the pressure of blazing spangled trees and is threatening such lights for next year. This year we are going to do something smaller but so psychedelic it should be enough to stake our claim among the Glitterati, even if we can't compete with people projecting Santa onto their walls. Photos may turn up once I have got over the madness of it all.

Truth is that however much I laugh at it, it's cheering.
This year more than any other we need a festival of light.