The Staples of the Christmas Season

Christmas just is not complete unless certain things are seen and experienced: Chestnuts roasting, snow, kids screaming on Santa’s lap, and of course Christmas decorations. I was feeling bad because I didn’t get the Christmas lights up outside this year. With all of the changes at work (I’ve assumed two full-time roles over the last month) and a heavy school load, I didn’t get to untangle and sort through my icicle lights. But

I promised Whitney that I would get some outside lights up, so this past Saturday I managed to put lights on two small trees in our yard. I shouldn’t have bothered. It looks worse than if I hadn’t done anything. The two trees I managed to wrap were small Charlie Brown-type trees, and look pathetic.

I was going to put up more lights outside, but I couldn’t get them to work. Christmas lights remind me how stupid I am. I can’t get the same strand to work from year to year. For as cheap as lights are the day after Christmas it is worth it for me to buy new strands each year and junk the others.

I need to take a tutorial from my father when it comes to outside decorating. Anyone who drives past Lyndy drive, just South of Hillcrest High School will see my Dad’s trees. It’s quite a spectacle. Grandpa Stretch (as my kids call him) is legendary for his lights. The man has a pair of 50-foot-tall Scotch pines in his front yard. Every year shortly after Thanksgiving he scales the trunks of those trees in order to decorate them with lights.

In one of the trees he places the icicle lights and spirals them down from the top. Near the top he can push them out at arm’s length to start the spiral. As he gets lower, he has to use a special stick that he has fashioned with a hook so that he can reach out to the ends of the branches. In years past he has decorated one of the trees with motion lights, and somehow always managed to get the motion lights to go the same direction.

He has two smaller blue spruce trees in the yard that are “only” about twenty feet tall. One of these he decorates with red and the other blue, appeasing both his Ute fan son (me) and his wayward BYU fan (Chas).

He also decorates his plum tree with all white, but didn’t this year because the plum tree died and has to be pulled. In years past he has also decorated his umbrella tree in all green, and his rose bush in yellow. It is quite a sight, and if I can get a good picture I will post it. The man is impressive.

I also mentioned pictures of kids screaming on Santa’s lap. I don’t know what mall Santas get paid, but it is not enough. Kate and I have pictures of all of our girls crying on Claus’ lap except for Bean (see below). We thought that would change this year because Lauren is old enough that she only likes Mom and Dad (and sometimes G-Pa Mike). But no, once again this year Samantha was the one who melted down. The whole time we were in line I tried to pep talk her and ask her what she was going to ask for. She was fine until I actually placed her. If she gets a lump of coal for Christmas we’ll know it was because she peed on Santa’s lap in a tantrum…