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My neighbors at the end of the block are in a festive battle for best Christmas display in lights. Until this year, the neighbor on the left end was king of lights and uncontested on our block. Then, sometime this year, his rival bought the house directly across the street from him. I am convinced that holiday display technicians insist on buying corner lots so they have two sides on which to display their wares.

The battle commenced in October for halloween. The new guy had his display up earlier and it was impressive with a graveyard, skeltons, ghosts, and witches. However, the king of yard displays is hard to beat, because he puts out something new every few days. He had fresh dug graves, skeletons, ghosts, witches, webs, giant spider, howling noises, and a giant mummy coming out on the balcony.

When it gets close to halloween, I drive an alternate route home to avoid driving by his house of horror. I could say I do it so the children aren’t frightened, but really it’s me who gets creeped out every year.

Thankfully, halloween ends and yard displays quiet on our block for a month. However, the day after Thanksgiving, the new guy jumped ahead again with his Christmas display. He loves inflatable displays as well as lights.  He has a giant merry go round, spinning penguin, santas, frostys, deer, skiing bear, candy canes, as well as a house and yard full of lights.

I really want to go over and encourage him, because sometime over the next eighteen days, he’ll realize he has lost again. The King has just gotten started with a giant new Santa in a hot air balloon, his musical trees, the train, snowman in the box, teeter totter, wooden soldier, and the 30 foot tree of lights. We have yet to see the Grinch coming out of the chimney, Snoopy, the snow globe, and multiple others that will reappear some day in December.

My neighborhood displays, although quite impressive, could not be described as beautiful. For that, we traveled down to Richmond to the Lewis Ginter Garden light display. It was lovely. They had butterflies, fish, dragonflies, fairies, tricycles, unicorn, lily pads in the pond all done in lights. In addition, there were whole pathways of lighted trees, tunnels, mazes, and buildings.

My favorite light display was a giant peacock in lights where several strands of the same color lights made up each feather in the tail. The kids loved the light dog running through the trees. We were all fascinated by the interactive train display which included house on fire and engine repair.

The one item that baffled us all, however, were the spider lights. An artist had made giant lighted spiders that were scattered across the garden. Last year, the designers had created a web of lights that the spiders sat on. It was not exactly holly jolly. When my friend Pam saw them, she asked, “What’s with the spiders?”

I’m thinking of giving the new neighbor down the street a bit of advice. If he could find the garden spider artist and buy himself some giant spider lights before next year, he may be able to take the king by surprise and win the halloween display hands down.

Every year Abby’s middle school hosts a Christmas party where the boys must wear ties and the girls must wear pretty dresses. I have learned it is not easy to find appropriate dresses for girls ages 11-13. They outgrow the little girls dresses and the junior dress assortment is either too casual or decidedly lacking in material.

Last year we searched and searched in vain until I drove to Richmond and went to Dilliards. Dilliards is a department store based in Texas. Therefore, they have plenty of teenage girl shoppers who need party dresses for quinceanera and debutante events. They have the most lovely little girl dress department.

Even though Abby can still fit in some of the dresses in the girls department, she refused to buy one. “Look how cute this is,” I would say. She would say nothing and just give me the teenage girl flat eyed glare. She may have done a bit of over exaggerated sighing as well.

Prior to driving to Richmond, Abby had printed out pictures of dress possibilities from their online store. Her father did not care for these possibilities for they were all lacking in material. So, we had discussions regarding appropriate dress length and shoulder coverage. Almost all junior dresses have skimpy straps or no straps at all which forces you to buy a sweater.

Abby loves to shop. My mom loves to shop. I do not love to shop. I suppose this is why on the way to Richmond Abby told me  “You make it no fun.” My most enjoyable shopping experience is when I can give Abby and my mom the money and wait for them to return and tell me about the great deal they found. However, my mom is too occupied for shopping right now, so Abby is stuck with me.

For Abby there are a few absolute No’s with clothing: No elastic, No scratchy netting, and absolutely No puffed sleeves. Even though the sweater was really cute and the puff on the sleeve was really small or the netting was a tiny amount on the bottom of the inside skirt…No! No! No!

Abby tried on dress after dress. Too short…Too skimpy…Too old…Wrong color… Finally a peacock blue dress with a skirt that fell below the knees. The shoulders were bare, so we started in on the sweaters. Too short…Too skimpy… Too old…Wrong color.

Sweaters were abandoned for capes. We disregarded Edna Mode’s advice of “No Capes!” and found a black cape to wear with the dress. Victory! We went to the register to pay and the girl rung up Abby’s dress. Without my being aware of it, Abby had chosen a dress that was 50% off. She did her grandma proud.