by Trent Rosser
It’s that time of year again, that time when everyone is cheerful, happy and Christmas shopping. It is also the beginning of the Christmas decorations. I don’t mind decorating the tree, its decorating the outside of the house that gets me. If anyone has ever seen the movie “Christmas Vacation”, that is me trying to decorate the house. It unusually ends up with me cussing a lot, being tangled up in lights and having to redo everything, because it just doesn’t look right. A large part of me not wanting to do it is that I have done it for years.
Back in the mid 90’s I worked for a lawn company. In the winter we did not mow yards. We custom built Christmas lights for homes. Most of them were homes in the greenways, colonies and sleepy hollow area. We custom built the lights to the home. A few of the homes won Christmas light contest. Yes, the homeowners might have won the prize, but we were the ones that were behind the scenes putting them together to make them look beautiful. We would wrap trees and install different size lights. We even decorated the huge rocks that were a part of the landscape. I remember being on the edge of a very steep roof looking 3 stories down. Nothing to break my fall except for the concrete driveway. That is when one of my crew looked up at me and said, “He really needs a girlfriend, no way would anyone in their right mind be up there like that!” I loved doing it then, but I am much older now. Falling off a roof did not scare me, now, it scares the crap out of me. Hell, I used to jump off the roof of the house if the ladder fell down. Now, I don’t get past the third rung of the ladder. Then if I fell off a roof, it would only hurt for a little bit unless I broke something, then it would only hurt for a few weeks. Now, I would be laid up in bed for months.
So again it is that time of year again when my wife looks at me and says, “It’s the day after thanksgiving, you know what you need to do!” It is here that I want to run. For the last 20 years I did not have to do any more Christmas lights. Then I married. Our first year as newlyweds, we lived in an apartment. There was no need to decorate the outside. But, then we moved to a house. So I was nice and bought a string of lights. It wasn’t enough. I ended up buying walkway lights. My wife said that there was empty spot on the windows, so we bought some to cover the windows. That was a good Christmas. Then we moved to a bigger house, so we had to buy more Christmas stuff. After putting them up, we realized that since we were on the corner, we need even more Christmas crap! Do you see the pattern here? Now after thanksgiving, it is time to put up the lights. So it is time to drag out the lights and tree. I will help my wife with the tree as best as I can. And as always I will put something on the tree and she will take it down and put it somewhere else.
Finally when the tree is done, she will ask again, “Now do you know what time it is?” excitedly I reply “Time for my colonoscopy?” She doesn’t even say anything, she just gives me that look and I know that it is time to get the ladder and get up on the roof. Now here is where things start to go wrong. I finally get the lights up where they need to be and I have extra on the wrong side of the house. So I take them down move them over a little bit and start again. Now I don’t have enough at the end. Take them down again and finally get up them exactly where they are perfect only to realize, I have it started at the wrong end! How am I going to plug it in? So, again, take it down and start over! This is where the cussing starts. Did I mention that every time that I moved the ladder, I broke lights that were on the string? Yep, so not only am I having to constantly moving the lights, but I do have to replace the lights as well. Usually after about 2 hours I have the top of the house done. It is time to start on the tree. Start at the bottom and work my way up. Do not have to redo the lights just plug them into each other and go. This only takes about an hour. Putting the lights on the walkway only takes a few minutes. Now starts the hard part.
Trying to figure out how to stretch the extension cords for all of them to plug in is crazy. This is a job that Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein together would not be able to figure out. So off to the store for more extensions cords. Finally get everything plugged in, turn them on and guess what..... Some are no longer working. I tested them all before I brought them outside to start putting them up, and now half of them are not working at all. So, I start pulling lights and replacing them to find the one that is causing the string to go out. Again, more cussing. Eventually we get them all lit up and looking good. I even bring out the wife for her approval. Finally, we are done. A full weekend shot due to putting up Christmas decorations. One thing that I can always count on. I can put them up all day long and we can look at them all night long. It will be next weekend when we will come home and my wife will say, “I think we need to get some more Christmas lights, I see a dead spot in one of the trees. Either that or you can try to redo the tree and try to cover it up.” Yea, either way looks like I will be redoing the trees. Merry Grinchmas!
