Taking Down Christmas Decorations in Cloverdale

The Christmas decorations are starting to come down in Cloverdale. About half the wreaths are gone from 176th Street and some of the lights. I saw some workers with the Christmas decorations this morning but they must have decided to call it quits due to the weather.

Usually it takes months for the Christmas deocrations to be taken down in Cloverdale. My guess is that there is a TV or film crew coming to town soon and taking down unseasonal decorations must have become a priority for the city. We'll see if the rest of them come down soon.

Christmas decorations in Cloverdale partially down

I was surprised last week that some of the Christmas decorations on 176th Street in downtown Cloverdale have gone. Namely the 2 red light banners with the stars on both ends at 58th Avenue and 56A Avenue. Also the flag banners of the stars have been replaced by the Cloverdale themed flags. The wreaths in Hawthorne Square are gone.

So they're getting to it a lot faster than last year when the Christmas decorations stayed up until April when a film crew was shooting some scenes and the city had to finally get them down.

The lights are still up on the Christmas trees. That would be the multicolored lights on the trees near the ambulance station on 58A Avenue and the white lights on the trees on 176th Street. Actually the white lights don't look so bad. Several cities have similar lights up year round.

The first Christmas theft

Don't you love driving by and looking at the houses that are beautifully decorated with Christmas decorations. And then if you read the local newspapers there are always letters to the editor in December from people who've had their decorations stolen from their front yard and wanting to get them back.

We decorate the inside of our house, but don't do much outside, other than string lights on our sundeck railing.

A few months ago we were at a client's house who was getting ready to move and had a lot of garbage outside including a slightly battered, rusty 18" high metal snowman holding a welcome sign. It has a couple of prongs to push it into the ground. Its kind of cute so I asked if I could have it and they said sure because they were just throwing it away. I also have two larger signs, a snowman and Santa Claus that stand on their own. They were also rejects, about to be tossed in a dumpster by a former martial arts studio Kerry used to go to, so he grabbed them.

I put the three of them out in our front yard. The smaller snowman in the garden in front of our front yard, and the larger snowman and Santa further away. Kerry is hoping that someone will steal the larger ones.

This morning when I came outside to walk the dog, the small snowman with the welcome sign is gone. So somebody had to come up within three feet of our front door to steal it.

Oh, well. Its not like it cost me big bucks. It was just a garbage rescue. But it was cute and it was too bad that some low life thief decided they needed a well worn snowman more than I did.