Why I Oughta...

With the holidays (officially) winding down in our house and the decorations being tucked back into their tubs and boxes, I wanted to include in my Web diary a photo of our front yard Christmas tree and our blow mold Santa and three reindeer .  I've done this in the past including a similar photo last year featuring the tree and Santa/reindeers .  The front yard tree *is* a thing in Downers Grove, but that's not why we do it.  We do it because of our time on Indiana Street in Elmhurst .  We really loved that tradition, so we've kept it despite moving to Downers.  This is the 11th year of documenting our front yard Christmas tree tradition - and 12th year of a front-yard photo.  2019 post was only of the blowmolds , so I'm not counting that in the 11 years.  Here's our 2021 front yard tree featuring a fresh snow covering our tree and Santa/reindeer. Here's our 2020 front yard Christmas tree with Santa and his reindeer .  Here's a photo of our Santa...

We brought just a little bit of Indiana Street with us to Downers.  Over the weekend, we put up our trees inside the house, but we also went to Menards and bought a small 5' Fraser Fir to put up in our front yard.  Just like we did on Indiana Street.  Starting with our first Christmas in Elmhurst (in our first house), we participated in the tradition of erecting a 'front yard tree' along with our neighbors.  My sister Vic told us about the tradition before we moved in and sure enough, we fell in love.  The street(s) always looked so great when all of the homes had a uniquely-styled and lighted tree.  You can see the C7 bulbs I put on our tree this year out in front of our #newoldfarmhouse.  Nat did a great job doing 'classy' decorations on the porch with garland and lights.  And wreaths in the windows that you can see above.  So, while we have moved out of Indiana Street, we still wanted to bring some of that tradition with us in our...