The parking lot was fairly full but it wasn't overcrowded inside. It was a very pleasant surprise to come across. We were grateful that we didn't have to succumb to going to Waffle House. It makes me wonder how many other restaurants may start staying open because there is quite a business out there to draw in. There are people who are traveling, or people who couldn't make Christmas dinner for some reason or other, or people with no families or friends to spend the evening meal with or the whole day with, or people who had to work at the bars or gas stations and didn't have time to make a meal or were too tired to make one once they got off work, or people who have unexpected company and not enough food at home to go around. There are lots of reasons that people will go out and cruise the streets on Christmas night to try find a meal they don't fix themselves. I had planned to make lasagna for dinner for everyone (as I mentioned in yesterday's entry) but I got out to the kitchen too late to make it in time for the young ones. They were too hungry to wait. So, Todd put some pasta on to boil and made a quick pasta for all of them. Thus, that is why Bill and I headed out the door in search of hopefully finding an acceptable, to us, place to eat.

There has been this little Christmas tree sitting on top my computer desk for the last year. Finally, this year I got some lights to put on it and I decorated it with my birds and bears ornaments since I've let Amy put their decorations on the tree in the living room. This is it to the left. Something we do every year is to go out and look at the Christmas lights on all the houses. Last year we didn't feel like doing it so yesterday and the day before we renewed our yearly excursion. I'll tell ya, it was pretty disappointing. The streets looked darker than I have ever seen them before. We did come across at least one "Wow" factor of decorations but that was it. You could look down whole streets and see just darkness with only the inside lights shining out from windows or a porch light. Either people are too depressed by the state of the country now or they feel they just can't (or don't want to) afford any higher prices on anything. A lot of people were probably saving their money for gas for their cars. The gas prices varied from $2.81 to $3.09 around the area.

We never go all out with lights on the house. The Muckheads put colored icicle lights on the house the past two years. They didn't put them up this year. When Bill heard I was going to weave a string of big lights around the railing, he took it upon himself to do it instead. Wah... I have this large candle light that I always hang up in our bedroom window, or the largest window in the house, and it went up again thanks to Bill. And the last touch were three twinkling snowmen on posts that I put by the sidewalk that leads to the porch. Not fancy but welcoming to us when we come home.

Okay, I must do it. Bill wrote this poem last night on his blog but I'm going to put it up here, too. He is known as The Grinch or Scrooge around here.

Xmas Wrapup

With his motions impeded by oceans of plastic
The Grinch who lives with us might do something drastic,
Absent some effort to clean up the place,
To pick up the boxes, to clear out some space.

He no sooner had vowed not to do it himself,
When someone stepped forward: a right jolly elf,
And smiling and waving, she came on the scene
With a sack she held tight that was plastic and green,
Then she spoke not a word but went straight to the floor
And she picked up the papers, the ribbons and more
And she stuffed the sack with them and giving a nod,
Handed them off to her deer partner, Todd.