Life often imitates art – my has been imitating the movie Christmas Vacation. For the past few days I’ve been calling Jessica Ellen while she has been calling me Clark a few times as we’ve transformed our abode into highly decorated Christmas themed wonderland. The fun started Saturday with the lights on the house. Armed with a staple gun, some gumption, and a ladder I started on my task. We only had a few sets of lights and planned on installing twinkling icicle lights around the perimeter of the roof. I had three strands installed when I had an epiphany. I needed to check the lights.
Most of the lights didn’t twinkle and the rest of them didn’t work. To add insult to injury the remainder of the lights that were bought at a different location weren’t compatible without modification because they had a spade plug and wouldn’t plug into the lights that were already on the house. An edict was given to me to swap the lights on the house for the other set. I did as I was told. We surveyed the house after the lights were installed and neither of us were happy outcome. The lights came down and were returned to Wal-Mart. I picked up some standard lights and headed back home to try and finish my job. As I was hanging lights I looked across the street and saw two neighbors climbing across their roofs trying to defy death as they too hung Christmas lights – there are few nice days during December and everybody was trying to take advantage of the decent weather.
I got done with the installation and looked across the street – I had been outdone by my neighbor.
Pride, stupidity, and access to credit forced me to compete – I had to take another trip to Wal-Mart. I still can’t match the number of his lights on his house but my lights no longer look meager in comparison.
This was my first time decorating and I think I did a decent job but I’m bound and determined to go overboard next year. LED lights only draw .02 amps per line so we can string 187 of them in a row without worrying about blowing a fuse – or blowing our budget when we pay the utility bill.
The next part of my vacation was a trip to find a tree worthy of sticking in our living room. I wanted a fifteen foot tall tree complete with a squirrel surprise. I wanted to take Jessica to the middle of the mountains on a long trek while she was wearing far too little clothing. I did wear a Chicago Bears hat but that is where the similarities ended to Christmas Vacation.
We went to a tree farm and they provided us with a bow saw that would prevent us from pulling the tree out of the ground root bulb and all. Sure it was fun but it was far too easy. Somebody should have gotten hypothermia, lost feeling in their lower extremities, and had their eyes freeze open. The weather wasn’t great but it was better than the previous year. Irony likes to rub things in my face and in the afternoon, hours after we left, the skies cleared and it turned into a decent day.
The end product looks pretty nice -
Jessica’s family will be here on Christmas Eve so I’m looking for a little chaos but I think I’ll be let down. As long as cousin Eddy and his dog Snot fail to show, it should be calamity free. Then again, a visit from the SWAT team would make it a Christmas to remember.
nice. she’s a ‘beaut Clark…..
So did everyone else’s lights in the neighborhood dim and their microwaves bog down when you plugged that wad of lights in?
No – we’ve got the power sipping brand – in the back of my mind I did wish that they had to turn on the auxiliary nuclear reactor