The Great Disaster of '98

Last week, Tim was away on business for two days which gave me the perfect opportunity to decorate for Christmas---alone.

It's better that way. Really. There is no cursing at tangled lights (well, okay, some cursing), grumbling about the Christmas music marathon, disparaging remarks about my Jingle Bell Rock Dancing Santa, arguing over who is in worse shape and should not be moving the armchair to accommodate the tree, or, most importantly, destruction of my Christmas village.

Years ago, I started painting ceramic buildings for my under-the-tree-village. Eventually, I ended up with a tiny metropolis of close to forty. Then, in the spring of '98, I found a class that taught how to make platforms from heavy duty construction styrofoam and water using wax and spray paint.

Naturally, I dragged Tim along, luring him with promises of tools and fire (what could be more manly than buying supplies at Home Depot and Radio Shack?), and other guys (which there were...even if they were eighty). Oh, and the promise that he would never, ever have to actually do any of this once the class was over.

And so, with visions of styrofoam plum trees dancing in my head, our basement became Santa's workshop. I spend hours planning the village. There was the downtown with it's shops, theater, hotel and government buildings. The two-lane highway leading from town where you could buy a used car or stop at Flo's Diner, the residential area with single-family homes ranging from craftsman style to Tudor and the nearby school, to the wooded area on the outskirts of town where the mill sat at the edge of a lake which flowed down to a camping area near town as a river.

I cut, and painted and glued. I spent hours with a soldering iron cutting miniature cobblestones and bricks and marking off parking spaces and grand staircases. I was obsessed (Tim was also obsessed---with avoiding all of this).

Finally, it was time to move it all upstairs for the grand unveiling. The tree was up, dancing Santa was happily doing his Elvis impersonation, and the house was decorated within an inch of it's life.

Tim started grabbing sections of the village (with the delicate, fragile, handmade, very breakable --can you see where this is going?--houses on top) and carrying them up the stairs (the cold, hard, sharp, steep and unforgiving stairs) against my objections.

Perhaps it was Santa's eighty-second chorus of "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" that fried his last nerve and prompted this foolish decision, or maybe he had become disoriented by the pine scented candles and sprays and oils which filled every nook and cranny of the house, but either way, it was not one of his better ideas.

Halfway up those cold, hard, sharp, steep and unforgiving stairs with the second to last section, there was a loud crack and an even louder expletive. Then, "Don't come down here."

Right. Like anything less than a herd of wild elephants could have stopped me from rushing down those stairs.

And there it was, I mean, there they were...fragments and shards of the hotel (the only hotel in town. Where were all the people supposed to stay now?), and the hospital (hopefully nobody in town would get sick or hurt over the Christmas season), as well as a few small mom and pop businesses that were gone for good (breaking the hearts of many a villager).

The disaster even claimed the lives of several inhabitants of the small, close-knit community and maimed others (one poor man had half his face blown off while feeding the birds, and another young boy lost part of one hand, making for an eternally lopsided snow-angel). It was tragic.

As I sat on the bottom step, mourning the loss of so many good people and the senseless destruction of property, a hand appeared next to me, holding a peace offering -- a glass of wine, and a dustpan. He tried being hopeful. "Look. We can glue on this guys leg." But in the end, there was little that could be done except make a trip or two out to the garbage, and rearrange the village.

And that is why we reached the very mutual decision that I, and I alone, should decorate for Christmas.