Christmas Lights Already?

It was quite cold this morning. I woke up at 5 AM to go on a 5 mile run before work. The local high school track is only 1/4 mile away so I ran over there and hopped the fence to do some laps where I don't have to worry about traffic. The wind was going good so the wind chill was low. I started well but after 1.2 miles I started not doing well. My back was a bit sore still so I decided to cut the run to 3.5 miles and run later in the day.

After work I went to my chiropractic appointment and got 'cracked' which felt good. But the Doc said no running to let the adjustment settle in. No running until Friday. Puts quite a damper on the training but a good run on Friday will remedy that.

As I drove home, I saw a lot of houses with Christmas Lights up and lit up. My rule of Thumb is that they can be up but not lit until December. But if it makes you happy to have them on, then more power to them. Me personally, I LOVE Christmas lights. I love decorating the house to best I can and then throughout December, we, as a family, drive around looking at all the nice houses decorated, and the not so nice ones as well. He jokingly give out awards every year. We only do it for fun and not actually tell the people about them but it is fun. We give out 4 awards each year:
1. First Place Award - This goes to the house that is decorated the best overall. A real nice display not over done.
2. The "Why Bother?" Award - This is to the guy who decorates so little that we say :Why did they bother ever decorating"? This could be a house that has many windows but only 1 window has lights and lots a trees but only 1 with lights. You get the point.
3. The 'Clark W. Griswold' Award - Named after Chevy Chases character in Christmas Vacation who puts lights on every open part of his house. There is even a house in the area here that does this to an unbelievable level. I think his electricity meter is smoking it is moving so fast. We have given this person the Lifetime Achievement award already.
And the final award is
4. The Craptacular Award - This goes to the display that is so horrible and with no thought that all you can say is that it is craptacular. Could be icicle lights with half out or lights strung up with no rhyme or reason.

Maybe this year I will try to take some pictures and post them for you all. Maybe you will get a kick out of it.

Looking forward to Friday's run!