On this home tour, there will be no refunds

For some reason, a few neighbor ladies came by in September and asked us to be on the Christmas home tour this year. For some reason, we consented.

Despite many lessons to the contrary, I’m often surprised when commitments made in one month cannot be simply forgotten in another. Now it’s almost December and the home tour is coming right up. They’re actually selling tickets to this thing. I’ve put out some feelers; apparently the ladies still expect us to participate.

The thing is, we’re not really home-tour people. If Martha Stewart were to drop by sometime, she might quickly excuse herself and spend the rest of the visit sitting in her car. We like our house and our stuff, but if Martha Stewart were going to do a makeover, she’d probably start by hiring a dump truck.

We’ve acquired quite a bit of Christmas stuff over time, but not much of it really ties a room together. Our ornaments are sort of a hodgepodge. They come out of the box like a big old Yuletide snowball that’s picked up way too much debris in its long roll down the years. There are tacky gewgaws from newspapers we used to work at. There are some sentimental things the kids made in school. For every light string that works, there are two that don’t. Normally we mix and match, pick up some new lights and a couple of wreaths, and call it good. But I suppose the folks paying $10 for a ticket will expect something more.

In September, there was loose talk that the homeowners’ group would send over a couple of gay guys to dispense decorating advice when the time came. Nobody decorates like gay guys, right? So far, they haven’t appeared. So now I’m starting to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Which means I went out to Lowe’s again today, for about the 40th time in the last couple of weeks. I’ve got a problem here, and I’m throwing money at it. If I had good taste, of course, I’d throw that instead.