A few pictures of Papa Noel's house...

...

Just for fun, I thought I'd post some of the pictures of us decorating the house, and the finished project.  This years decorations are brought to you courtesy of Ma and Pa Switzer.  Mom for helping pick them out...and Dad for making his credit card available.  Nice decorations here are kind of expensive (at least by our standards).  You mostly only find the nicer stuff in the stores that cary North American items.  So I hadn't bought that many decorations in years past.  But yea, we rectified that this year.  My Mom is huge into Christmas decorations, so she was pretty excited to help us get things set up. 

The funniest moment was when we saw these fake Christmas trees that looked like they were covered in snow.  I figured I could buy three or four and put them in my front yard like a forest.  I could sit in the middle of them, and except for the sweat pouring off my forehead, I'd almost be able to pretend I was in Canada.  I could see it in her eyes, that my Mom was dying to buy them.  =)  And as entertained as I would have been...there were probably other, more sane, ways to spend that money...

Anyhow...hope you enjoy the pics...

Mom trying to figure out our tree...

Mom and Dad putting up the lights.  I have to say that I'm impressed

with the fact that my parent's marriage has survived so many

years of putting up Christmas decorations...

Unwinding the new greenery...I think the guys mostly thought we were crazy,

and that they should just go along with the gringos.  Besides, I'd promised

them pizza if they helped...

Hanging up the greenery...

The greenery the next morning, after it fell off the beams

and onto the floor...

Roberto untangling last year's Christmas lights. 

My solution would have been to just to go buy more.

 

Greenery and lights up the railing.  Of course by the time

they finished the lights didn't work anymore...

Dad all decked out and ready for...uh...Mardi Gras?

Roberto going all hard core on the tree.  He did a pretty good job

for his first time.  In good parental form, I did wait until he went

to bed before I..um..fixed a few things...

Mom concentrating on something.

Dad mocking Mom...

In good Switzer tradition, we finally had to give Dad something to do.  So his job

was making extension cords.  Sandro, who's not much into decorating,

was more than happy to help...

Around the tree in all it's glory.  =)  If you look closely there are actually

Candy Canes on the tree.  I found some this year. 

I threatened the guys to within an inch of their lives,

if they touched the Candy Canes before Christmas, they would die. 

It worked.  Christmas day they were all still there.  Only now no one wanted

to eat them 'cause they were all soft and sticky from the heat. 

I ended up just thhrowing them away.  Ah...Merry Christmas...

And here's the finished product for your veiwing pleasure...  =)

So there you go...that was our house at Christmas time.  Like I said, if you ignored the sweat pouring off your brow and the palm tree outside...you could almost imagine it was Christmas in Canada.  =) 

My favourite moment was when David came home (he couldn't be there when we were decorating).  He walked in and looked around with big eyes (like a little kid) and then after a moment told me it was like being in Papa Noel's house (Santa Claus).  He figured he'd just move his bed down to the dining room and live there for awhile.  He was pretty excited!  Just another reason why I love that kid.  He makes Christmas fun...  =)