Today is the day I’ve been putting off. It has been lurking around my consciousness for weeks now like a suppressed middle school memory. But now Thanksgiving is over and my annoying neighbors are out there, shaming me into submission. Yes...it’s time to festoon the outside of my house with Christmas lights. The purpose of this ritual, as far as I can tell, is twofold. First, it contributes to the gaiety of the season, creating an appropriately festive milieu, spreading joy throughout not only the neighborhood, but in our individual hearts. Second, it offers proof to any roving bands of nationalists out there that we are not Jewish.
I will start this project with vigorous optimism. I clearly recall the extra care I took putting all of these lights away last year. I carefully wound each strand with delicate precision, as someone defusing a bomb, determined to avoid tangles. I placed each strand into the metal filing cabinets in my garage with the kind of precise care usually reserved for placing sleeping infants into cribs or taking soufflés out of the oven. I inventoried each extension chord and every wreath, even made mental notes about improvements that would enhance next year’s display. So, I have every reason for optimism that this year will be different.
But, hovering over each of my shoulders is a spirit. On my right is an adorable Christmas cherub humming White Christmas. On my left is the Grinch, before his heart grew three sizes. He is whispering in my ear, and he knows a thing or two about my historically faulty memory. His understanding of the procedures I followed in last year’s putting away of the lights is very different than mine and he’s letting me know about it no uncertain terms. He recalls a haphazard, frustration-filled frenzy of stuffing and forcing recalcitrant and already tangled strands every which way into those metal filing cabinets, with quite a bit of uncharacteristic profanity, especially so soon after a celebration of our savior’s birth. He reminds me of my incompetence in that annoying rhyme-y way of his.
Of course, he’s right. I will open the filing cabinet drawers with great trepidation, holding on to the faint hope that I really did take care last year. But, like every year that has preceded this one...it will be a hot mess. I will pull out one Gordian Knot after another and think to myself..What the hell?
Eventually I will untangle the mess. Then I will plug in each strand to determine how many new strands I will need to buy. Some will spring to life merrily. Others will turn on, then flicker menacingly. Others will be thrown in the trash. I will then make the drive to Lowe’s to buy new lights only to discover that this year’s models are slightly different than last year’s. This is due to some knitwittery cooked up at some government agency charged with saving the planet from global warming or some such thing. This year LED lights are all the rage, which is great if you want the outside of your house to look like the Elvis wedding chapel in Vegas. Since I prefer the vintage 1950’s style lights, which I’m sure are real ozone hole killers, I find myself in a quandary. Do I bend with the times and make the transition to LED or do I stubbornly insist on bespoiling the planet and search all over town for my old school lights?
Or.....
I feel rather certain that regular readers of this blog know the answer to this question. Of course, it would help matters if I had a dog who would help me with this project like this good boy...
Instead, I’m stuck with this girl...
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