This year we were very quick to put up our Christmas lights. They were up right after Thanksgiving like good Christmas celebrators. To most people, this wouldn't be a big deal. But apparently in suburbia, you're judged by your speed in putting up signs of your holiday love.
Last year was a tad busy in that we had returned from our honeymoon about five seconds before we had to host Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in our new house. So our priority was not so much to get up our Christmas lights. Around December 20 we did manage to get out there and put up some lights. In zero degree weather, Scott risked his life standing on a ladder on an icy driveway while I directed him on how best to maximize the 2 strings of lights we had because we were too late to buy new ones.
One string in, our neighbor came over to say hi. And to passively aggressively comment on our tardiness in light hanging by stating "oh, we're so glad you're ACTUALLY putting lights up, we weren't sure you would." As if they'd done nothing from Thanksgiving on but fret over whether their new neighbors would put on an adequate display of holiday adoration. It made me think of every bad Christmas light competition movie I've ever seen...which incidentally I had thought were bad cliches up until this point.
So despite just having a baby and having about 100 things more important to do, outside Scott went to put up our lights, thus avoiding any passive aggressive commentary.
