Merry Halloween!

Instead of candles, I put a strand of Christmas lights, balled up, inside our Halloween jack-o-lanterns and put them on the porch. Doing this allowed us to leave them and not worry about fire unsupervised or the wind blowing them out. The effect was really pretty.

You might wonder why, a few weeks before Christmas, I'm bringing up Halloween decorations. It's because they're still on the porch.

"Rob," I said sometime in early November, "I'm not touching those. I officially declare it your job to dispose of those pumpkins."

We had carved them two weeks before Halloween as it was, so by the time the 31st actually rolled around, they had already started to get soft. I figured, though, that they'd be disposed of fairly quickly, and so it would be alright.

He said he would do it, too, but, well, you know the story of Clyde...

I brought them up last night for the millionth time.

"Oh, they're gone," he said. "I got rid of them... and I decorated our porch for Christmas. Want to see?"

"You did not!"

"I did, come look!"

He pulled back the blinds, opened the door and presented me with two black, foul smelling blobs decked out in Christmas lights that cheerfully sparkled amidst the goo. He grinned.

"Merry Christmas, Honey!"

Unfortunately, I'm not yet so hardened as Mrs. Pratt, and my "Look of Death" dissolved into laughter.