I love it when our house is decorated for the winter holidays. However getting to that point is nearly impossible. I always have the highest of hopes to start early and managing all the other things in life get in the way. Halloween was no better this year, for the second time I let my child and friends decorate the house and yard.

We live in one of those suburban cities developments where everyone's house has several of the same signature builder touches. We like it - the schools are great and close by, the streets are full of kids and the area is safe. The downside is most houses look a lot of like on the outside and at times on the inside too. We may not all celebrate Christmas but I bet 90% slap up decorations for some winter holiday.

I have this Norman Rockwell dream of making cookies and cocoa while we put up the tree but I don't know if we can ever get that far until school gets out or work is done. Don't get me wrong - we always get there, it is just about two weeks later than those enterprising moms who decorated the inside and out the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The one thing we did do is making a Christmas wreath. We love to get a blank wreath and hot glue gun the heck out of stuff on it. As with any creation, it isn't perfect but it was made with a lot of laughs and it is an original. I think the time being silly and making something special was worth it.

So we may be one of the only houses on the block without all the bells and whistles up yet but we do have an original on the door.