Blinded By The Light

When I was young, my Aunt Margie would spend every Christmas with us, and make decorating the tree about as much fun as a root canal.

"No, no!  You can't hang Rudolph near Mickey."

Why?  Are they mortal enemies?  Can we put Dumbo next to Mickey, or do you think that'll start a stampede?

"Stop!  The blue bells go at the top, they're breakable."

Okay.  I'm fifteen, not five, and they are from K-Mart, not Swarovski.  If I promise not to ride my tricycle in the house, can we hang at least one bell under the six-foot mark?  Pleeeease, can we, huh?

"Wait.  String the lights from top to bottom, not side to side.  And start inside and work out.  You want to give the tree depth."

Um.  You are aware the tree is plastic right?  With metal "limbs"?  And since our lights are from, like, 1935, I'm pretty sure just having them in the same room constitutes a fire hazard, let alone  putting them inside the tree.  Besides, don't you think the tree kind of glows in the dark as it is?

With this scene played out Christmas after Christmas, it's no wonder I am scared for life.

So when Tim and I had our first Christmas, I convinced him to get a pre-lit tree, and then I hung glass bulbs on all the lowest branches.  Hehehe (and then I ran with scissors and went swimming 58 minutes after eating--what can I say, I was young and crazy!)

But last year, Tim talked me into getting a real tree.  He promised faithfully that he would do all the lights by himself.  I would not have to re-live my childhood nightmare.

After about two hours, our tree boasted several hundred lights, woven in, out, up, down and side to side.  It twinkled like a float in Disney's Electric Parade.  Proudly, Tim showed off his handiwork.

"You can't even see the wires, and I used ten boxes of lights," he bragged.

"Okay, you're hired,"  I told him.  "You get to do the lights every year from now on."

And then this year, disaster struck. 

After thirty-two years of dealing with a bad knee, Tim needs a replacement.  That means surgery, weeks of rehab, and lots of pain, both before and after the surgery.

But enough about Tim.  Let's talk real pain, my pain.  This year, I had to put up the lights.

I decided to do it while he was at work, so the fool wouldn't try to climb a ladder with a bad knee.  He called as I was plugging in the first strand, and in a moment of weakness (or insanity), I told him what I was about.

"I'll do it," he roared at me.  "You'll do it wrong.  Leave it till I get home tonight."

Gee, thanks Aunt Margie.  I've got to get off the phone now because I'm having a flashback and I can't hear you over the voices in my head.

So with that vote of confidence, and wishing I could start drinking at 9am on a Wednesday, I began to string the lights.

In and out, up and down, round and round I wrapped, unwrapped and rewrapped those stupid lights.  Morning turned to afternoon as I added strand after strand.  Up the ladder, down the ladder.  Stop and back up to make sure I didn't miss any spots.  My lights just had to live up to last year's display, or I would never hear the end of it.

Somewhere around 3:00, I was about halfway done and wondering how Tim was able to finish in two hours when it was taking me six, when another disaster struck.  I ran out of lights.

Dumbfounded, I stared at the tree.  How could I have used all the lights and not be done?  And what should I do now, spend another day unwinding and rewinding the lights?

Nope.  No way.  Not gonna happen.

I took a picture of the unfinished tree and sent it to Tim, then hopped in the car, drove to Target and bought the last nine boxes of lights they had.

In the meantime, Tim called, howling with laughter.  "I'm married to Clark Griswald from Christmas Vacation!"

"Do you think it's too bright?" I asked.

"Too bright?  When we fire that bad boy up, we're going to take down the whole Eastern seaboard.  Good thing we're having a generator put in.  We'll need it just to light the tree.  I think you can see it from space.  But on the bright side, Santa won't need Rudolph to find our house.  He might need sunglasses and SPF 60, but he sure can't miss it!  Hey, I'll bet your parents can see it from Florida.  Tell them to step outside and look north."

Great.  I married Shecky Sinclair.

The abuse continued when he came home, but the worst part was, the extra nine boxes were still not enough, and I had to spend most of Thursday tracking down the same kind of lights, which apparently no one but Target sells. (But I will save that for another blog)

I've made up my mind though.  Next year, we're going to a beach somewhere and decorate a palm tree.  How many lights could that take?