A very redneck Christmas

Monday night I had a hair bow party of my very own. The girls and I had gone to one last week and spent so much money and wanted so many more bows that we had to have one of our own. Look at me talking like I wear the bows myself. I assure you, though, I do not. But, I do *heart* hair bows.

During the party, "Grammy's Connie" mentioned that they had had several displays pull out of the Park of Lights at the state park that day. Every year, Twin Bridges state park opens the park up to area individuals, businesses and organizations and they make light displays throughout the park. Then folks can drive through from Thanksgiving night until Christmas and vote for their favorite.

A few nights before that, Paul and I had been talking about how much fun it would be to set one up and decided that next year we would do one with a redneck theme. Hearing Connie talk about the lack of participation this year, got Paul and I to thinking that maybe, just maybe, we could get it together. After the hairbow party we talked about it until nearly midnight then decided that we just didn't have time to do it this year since the displays had to be done by Wednesday night. However, the power of my mother and Connie is too much to be reckoned with by mere mortals and Tuesday morning Mom called me at work to tell me that yeah, we were doing one.

I got to the park at 2 yesterday and after driving to Connie's to switch the hitch on Paul's truck, driving to her daughter's to get the itty bitty camouflage camping trailer, getting bitten on the ankles by her retarded boxer dogs, driving 40 mph from her house to the park with a line of cars behind me, then driving a massive Dodge Ram hauling an itty bitty camouflage trailer through a wind-y road in a state park, Mom and I started setting up my display.

For me, this whole thing was a big deal. I think I've grown as a person through this. See, I'd never pulled anything and was a bit nervous. Paul has never let me pull anything because he says my backing up skillz are a bit lacking, but, by cracky, yesterday I pulled that camper and even backed it up a bit. I also don't drive his Dodge very well because it's a freakin' yard barge. But I did it. I even walked out to my neighbor's old dilapidated shed yesterday afternoon to fetch some baling wire to rig up the signs. I just kept chanting "Don't scream in front of your kind old neighbor, don't scream in front of your kind old neighbor" to myself and no diva-eating rats came at me. I got rust under my fingernails, learned that even frozen fingers are capable of tearing duct tape, discovered that spanking my fist-fighting children will calm them right down and after that they'll behave like little redneck Christmas angels and also have decided that my mom is more redneck than she'd ever admit.

I think it goes without saying, the display is very redneck. Paul says it's not redneck enough, but I think that considering we decided on and completed the task in a matter of about 30 hours, I think we made a pretty fair showing. If you're a local, you really need to drive through the park and check out all the displays and then vote for me for the display you think is best which probably isn't mine, but vote for me anyway. Everyone who has a display has worked hard - of course, most of the people were intelligent enough to do so before the temperatures dropped to the mid-30's yesterday and didn't stand out in the freezing drizzle and gale force winds to set theirs up, but still a lot of hard work has gone into each display.

I will take pictures to show those of you who aren't local because, really, you need to see it to complete your holiday. It ain't Christmas until you see a camouflage camping trailer surrounded by pink flamingos and decorated with mismatched lights hung with love, Christmas spirit and lots and lots of duct tape.