surprise email

The last three years our living community has hosted a decorating contest in December.  

The first year, there were detailed instructions that the judging would be based on decorations on the balcony space of each apartment.  Our specific apartment layout includes an enclosed balcony with large windows the whole length. This meant that if I wanted to decorate, I would need to get creative using the window space!  And creativity came.  I freehanded 10" letters on black cardstock that read "the stockings were hung" and then I used tons of glitter to outline/decorate the letters.  I hung our stockings with suction cups and used many strands of lights to highlight the area. Finding glitter on everything for the following month was totally worth First Prize and the $100 credit to our rent!! Woohoo!  And did I mention I was 6months pregnant?

Some not-so-great photographs of the window display. 

We did not participate in the decorating contest in 2011.  I going to blame mommy brain as I don't even remember receiving information about it!

Now that brings us to this past December 2012.  We received the information about the decorating contest but I decided there was enough already going on to celebrate Christmas that I was not going to devote special time to brainstorming a fun window display. 
We did however decorate our front porch enterance with garland, lights and wreaths as we have done all the years we have lived in our apartment.

  Our porch decor for Christmas with a fresh covering of snow.

You can imagine my surprise last week when I received the following email:

 

Dear Faye,

I wanted to let you know that you were the second place winners in the patio decorating contest! $100.00 credit was posted to your account and you can deduct that from your next rental payment!

Have a great day!

Why yes, that just made my day!!  Celebrate!! We decorated with no intentions of winning a contest but to enjoy the Christmas spirit and we won $100 credit towards our rent.  I love how when you least expect something great to happen; it does x10!  

Have a great night, my friends...
I'm off to write my February rent check for $100 less than usual!