There are few things

I'm not sure if I was never really one to get swept off my feet at grand gestures of presents or whatnot or if that's a new position since becoming an adult. Perhaps it's tied to the fact that we didn't have a lot of money growing up as kids and while I never really felt any hardship, I don't feel I missed out on anything because of some of the memories I have growing up. While money was tight, time spent as a family or with my brother wasn't and well, perhaps that's why I could care less what name my heel is walking over each day or the brand of car I drive (although don't get me started on Fords).

So when I do actually see something I like and want, I have very little impulse control not to buy it but I figure that as it happens less often than most, I can be forgiven.

When I moved into my house, my first Christmas was rounding the bend at this time of year. Amazing that I've been here now for almost two and a half years and amazing more than I've been here longer on my own (sans the med student) than I was with le ex. But I digress...it was at this time that the neighbour at the other 'corner' of our street put up star lights that hung as a curtain in their dining room window. Because they were on the corner where the two streets intersected, every time I went north on my street, I'd see the lights. I was enchanted.

I'm not sure what it is about stars and twinkle lights. I've wanted nothing more than to have twinkle lights in my back yard and then to see stars I could have in my house, well, I was sold. I remember begging le ex to try and find them, convinced they were an Ikea product, and to get them when we did one day stumble upon them. But he saw them as unsightly and expensive. I resigned myself to trying to think that they were tacky so I wouldn't want them as much.

Fast forward almost two years and not wanting to let the Ikea gods get the better of me, I was in the Toronto Ikea on a mission when I came across them once more. This time, without hesitation, I bought them. And as my street seems to be getting more and more like the Griswalds every year (WTF? Even *I*, lover of all things Christmas, have a limit and some neighbours reached it several strings of lights ago), I will turn on my simple lights and bask in the oddly greeny-cream glow.