Home Depot

A friend of mine and I have a friendly competition over who decorates their home first for a holiday. It’s all in fun and there is no one upmanship involved, but I must admit that it did light a fire under us to get the Halloween decorations down and festoon for Thanksgiving this year. We do a thing or two in Spring for Easter, and hang a flag and some spangle for the 4th of July, of course. But October, November and December are the months when we let our imagination, and excitement, run wild. The kids love it but we do it as much for our own enjoyment as for theirs. Even if I’m not feeling in the “holiday spirit”, it does perk me up when I drive up to the house and see our ghouls, goblins, pilgrims and varied and sundry Christmas revelers lighting the path to our front door.

That’s where the Home Depot came in this year. It started literally the day after Thanksgiving when my husband ran out to buy new lighting for the hedges. Last December he’d undertaken a crusade to string lights across the length of our driveway. Every weekend the man would rant about how frustrating it was to be able to only connect four strands of lights together before one or another strand would blow. My daughters would watch daddy from the living room window, giggling as he stomped around and shook his head clearly annoyed that his dream was being dashed by Ohm’s Law and the principles of electrical potential difference.

Oops, sorry. Had a momentary Physics 101 flashback.

Each weekend the alert would be sounded. “Daddy’s going to work outside!” The girls would go racing to the window and count how many times the poor man would pace up and down the driveway disconnecting a blown set, and connecting another new one in its place. (They also tried to read his lips to see if, perchance, any “expletives” were being muttered out of range of their hearing…)

But this year everything changed. My husband offered to take the girls out so that I could finish picking up after our Thanksgiving dinner the day before, and I took him up on it. (It’s a lot easier to pick up the kitchen when you don’t have three kids constantly walking in and out of the room grabbing yet another glass and filling it with water, only to drink half of it and leave it on the counter next to the ones that are drying.) As I was placing the last serving dish on the “clean” table, the front door opened and my husband announced that he had solved “the problem”.

Me: “What problem? The likelihood that you’ll never retire because our economy is tanking? Global warming? Tooth decay?”

Him: “No! Our external lighting problem!”

I’d forgotten we had a problem. Placing several Home Depot bags on the counter, he pulled out box after box of low energy LED lights (placing them next to and on top of the pots that I was planning to put away next) and explained that NOW with these NEW lights, he could connect up to 1,000,000 strands together (OK he said 90) and they would never blow out! “That’s nice, dear” I replied.

Later that evening I went out to see what he had done. Actually, he nagged me all afternoon to go out but I finally went out when it got dark. What’s the point of looking at Christmas lights in the daylight, I ask you? The truth is, they looked beautiful, and the 10 strands he connected reached almost all the way down the length of the driveway. He reserved some as well for the hedges on our side lawn. As part of the afternoon’s decorating, he also pulled out our old inflatable Home Depot Santa Express choo choo train (complete with a penguin popping out of the caboose), and our cute Home Depot inflatable snowman. These two have been gracing our lawn for a few years now. But he wasn’t done yet, he advised. He still had to put up a wreath and add more lights to the fence. “Don’t worry about it, I told him.” I’ll take care of it.

Nothing strikes more terror into my husband’s heart than when I hint at the possibility that I might be going shopping.

Well, I did go shopping back at The Home Depot, and if you followed my tweets this past Wednesday (https://twitter.com/MariaAmelia3) you’d know that what I had intended to be a small excursion for a wreath and a few more strands of LED lights turned into two trips to the store – the second for consensus from the girls on what inflatable to buy – and a lot of “extra” stuff coming back home with me.

So I forgot about the lights, OK? I can’t be perfect all the time. But I did bring back two adorned hanging real pine balls (big), one real adorned pine wreath (which makes the entrance look AND smell “purty”) a box of Martha Stewart owl ornaments for the Christmas tree, and the ” pièce de résistance¨ Mr. Sock Monkey, our new 6 foot inflatable front yard friend. OOO OOO AHH AHH. (I would have brought home the LED lighted pink flamingo wearing a Santa Claus hat, too, but I had a feeling I’d be driving back to the store with it later once my husband saw it. I do also have to consider the neighbors.

So, one more note. I don’t like going to “hardware” stores, especially of the big box variety. Set me loose in a Radio Shack and I am as happy as a clam. But there is something about the large pieces of wood and testosterone floating around hardware stores that I don’t enjoy. BUT, it was very easy for me to go to The Home Depot in my area. It is clean, well lit, the signage is fantastic, the staff  in the holiday decoration section was super nice, and the selection was tremendous! Plus, I didn’t have to feel badly about the environmental friendliness of what I had purchased. The owl ornaments became part of our home and will hang on our tree, G.W., for years to come. The pine decorations are biodegradable, and… and… OK I DIDN’T BUY THE LED LIGHTS, BUT I WILL LOVE MR. SOCK MONKEY FOREVER!

If you are still looking for ideas for decorating your home for Christmas or Hanukkah or any holiday, and don’t want to get sidetracked like I did, you can also visit www.homedepot.com/holiday prior to going to the store. You may just pick up an idea or two.

But – if you happen to live in my neighborhood – don’t copy my sock monkey. Thank you. If you would like a chance to win a $50 gift card to The Home Depot, stay tuned to my next post…

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is part of a compensated campaign with Latina Mom Bloggers and The Home Depot. The Home Depot works with bloggers such as myself to conduct product reviews. They do not tell bloggers what to say about their products or how to say it. The Home Depot fundamentally believes that people should be free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. The Home Depot often provides product – free of charge – to bloggers for review as they did for this post. The Home Depot’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. The Home Depot provided me with a gift card to shop for the holidays and post my experience. All opinions expressed in this article are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone.