LET THERE BE LIGHTS

As this time of year rolls around, I start to feel faint. It means decorating the Christmas tree, or at least putting up the lights. Then pulling out all the decorations, setting them up, then getting tired of looking at them, and anticipating the mess of putting them all away. Did I ruin your holiday plans yet?

As a child, I did childish things; now that I am an old fart, I do old farty things. One of them is dreading Christmas. I have no little children in the house, so why bother. Some people love Santa, or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Me, I love Ebenezer Scrooge, before those darn ghosts converted him!

Bah! Humbug! Give me Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas morning and Christmas day with my family, and I am happy. Don’t need decorations, just food and Jack Daniels. Maybe a little football game with my son and brother-in-laws and nephews and I am good to go.

My idea as I have mentioned in the past is to leave the decorations at the front door. As you come in, you reach in the box and grab as many as you like of the decorations and stick them where you want. Starting the day after Christmas, if you are leaving my house, you take what you stuck from where you stuck them and place them back into the box as you leave. (Hopefully, you don’t need to sanitize them when you unstuck them.)

Last year I put up the tree and they already had lights on them. One of the sets of lights wasn’t blinking, but was on. TLW (The Little Woman) came home from work that day, notice the lack of blinking and mentioned it to me. You don’t think I was going to try and find out which bulb it was, were you? I told TLW, if she wanted to see the lights blink, to blink her eyes real fast.

My Mother-in-law, God rest her soul, would have her tree decorated and put away in the box. Lights, balls, tinsel and any mementos were all left in tack on the tree and set back in the box. Every year, as the holiday rolled around, she just pulled it out of the box, already decorated! Great! She was a smart woman!

I did hang the wreaths on the door and the big window in the dining room. Now I have to take them down!

During this holiday season, please remember my buddies Joan and DD, and all those you know who need our prayers.