You Light Up My Life

As Clark Griswold so aptly illustrated in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, one can never adorn their house with too many lights. When it comes to Christmas there is no such thing as an “excess of illumination.” After all, what would Christmas be with out them? With that in mind, the Sisterhood recently spent time reminiscing about lights from their Christmas’ past.

Rudolph is on the Roof

By Big Sis

When our children were young and still believed, my husband and I made a supreme effort to be those parents who put on a magical Christmas display, in every sense of the word. Nothing was too extreme when it came to our Yuletide celebrations. One Christmas in particular lives on in our family memories. In this case, it was only one light, but its impact was very powerful.

My husband, who is creative and enthusiastic, devised a brilliant plan to enthrall our children. On Christmas Eve, with the help of an extension cord several miles long and a 10 foot ladder, he installed a giant red light in a back yard tree. At some point (actually when we wanted the kids to go to bed) he would sneak out and plug the light in. One of us would then point out the light, declare that it must be Rudolph’s nose and suggest that Santa’s visit must surely be imminent. We thought we had nailed it and were very excited to see the kid’s reaction.

Later that evening, things were progressing as planned, and the mood was joyful. Anticipation filled the air. The young ones fuelled by adrenalin and sugar were enjoying themselves immensely. The adults fuelled by fatigue and alcohol were pretty much ready to end the evening.

And so my husband slipped quietly out into the back yard and plugged in the light. Such was the noise and commotion inside, even though the light was visible through the living room window, no one noticed. I was about to point it out when my husband reappeared and beckoned me into the kitchen. He had another brilliant idea.

Our roof is flat and is easily reached. He planned to climb up on the roof and simulate the sound of reindeer landing. I reluctantly agreed that it was a wonderful idea as he again disappeared outside.

As a diversionary tactic, I pointed out the light and our eldest immediately suggested that it was Rudolph. The reaction to that was totally unexpected. The youngest started crying and one by one, like dominoes falling, the others joined in. Instead of happy, bedazzled faces, there were tears and cries of panic. It was pandemonium. To add insult to injury, my husband was unaware of the fiasco below and proceeded to stomp on the roof, hoping to simulate the reindeer landing with Santa’s sleigh. We were now on hysteria alert.

Soon after, with a big grin on his face, my husband reappeared in anticipation of a scene of joy and wonder. Instead he found weeping children and a bewildered wife, trying desperately to comfort their frightened youngsters. To our credit, we dug deep and patiently restored calm to the evening, put the kids to bed and breathed a sigh of relief. Strangely, that was Rudolph’s one and only appearance at our house, but trust me, it was never forgotten.

Foot Note: To our horror, we only realized the next day that we had forgotten about the light in the tree. Hubby made another quick foray into the yard and retrieved it just in time. Phew!

I Have a Dream

By Middle Sis

As the Christmas season approaches and the neighborhood starts lighting up, I often think of our house when we were kids. Back then, every house on the block put up Christmas lights and ours was no exception. What was notable about our house, however, was the fact that all the lights were green, not the multicolored or red/green pattern that most houses favoured. The other notable thing was that the lights were absolutely, positively hung in a straight line with not even a centimetre deviation anywhere. This was after all, the house of the man who ironed his carpet to get chair marks out.

So, it was with this history that we put up our Christmas lights each year, with my husband climbing the ladder and doing his best to replicate the precision of my childhood. Because we moved several times over the years, we had many different types and colours of lights and differing light arrangements depending on the exterior layout of our house. And every year my husband dutifully did the best with what we had. However, while I really appreciated his efforts, I was never really “all in” on this project. That is until I discovered icicle lights.

Our current house has a somewhat Victorian look to it with a steep pitched, multilevel roof and a nice front porch. I could clearly envision those lights hanging from the highest part of the roof, bathing the house in a soft winter glow. It would be magnificent! There was only one problem. To reach the top of the roof we would need at least a forty foot ladder which we didn’t have. This obstacle combined with the nightmares I had just thinking about my husband climbing that high meant my dream was on hold.

Fast forward a few years when I came across an advertisement for a man who would come to your home and put up your Christmas lights, and not only that, he would help with planning the layout of the lights and even provide the lights. Aha!! My dream was back on! I quickly phoned him and enquired about the details. Yes, he could provide icicle lights, yes, he had a ladder tall enough to reach the top of our roof, and yes, he could fit me in at the beginning of December! The universe seemed to be cooperating in a big way until I heard the price…. upwards of $500! After I picked myself up off the floor, I realized that my dream was once again on hold. I just could not bring myself to spend that amount of money no matter how beautiful the house looked in my mind’s eye. I’d much rather spend that money on my family.

And so here we are a year later and I think I’ve made peace with the fact that I am probably not going to have my dream icicle light house at Christmas any time soon. I guess we’ll stick with our good old basic light setup and hey, the neighbours across from us just put up their Christmas lights and yes, they are icicle lights, so at least I can look out my window and dream… Sigh

Night Time is Light Time

By Little Sis

My husband loves Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. He loves cooking the turkey, baking holiday treats, setting up the tree, and most of all putting the lights on the house. I think this love of illumination is related to a shared interest in Christmas displays from the beginning of our relationship.

When we first started dating we used to drive around town and see all the houses decorated in their Christmas finery. We would spend hours at a time staring in amazement at each house, and I suspect that my husband was also dreaming of a time when we would display lighting creations of our own.

When we finally became home owners, his dream came alive. From the moment he saw the neighbors putting up their lights he was hooked. He was a man on a mission and I have to admit that we could hardly contain our excitement when he announced that he was ready for the debut of his creative efforts. He plugged the lights in and just like that, our house was magical!

I’m not at all suggesting that perhaps things got out of hand, but gradually over the years he started to add more lights to his collection. It was when he began to branch into inflatables, that I had to take a stand. I was okay when there were only two but when he wanted to buy the inflatable of Frosty the Snow Man, and some elves inside a snow globe and put them on top of the car port, I said no. Just to spite me he went out and bought more lights. Yes, we now have a lot of them.

But here’s the thing. For some strange reason my husband likes to put up the lights when it’s dark out. This happens every year, and I have no idea why he stubbornly waits until night time. Last year was no exception. It was 6:00 on a Sunday night when he decided it was time to tackle the annual decorating ritual. When I went out to check on his progress, much to my surprise there were other folks putting up their lights as well. I took comfort in knowing that he had company. If he needed help he could ask them, and I could stay inside.

So I retreated to the warmth of the house and settled in to watch TV. Half an hour later the house went dark. The first thing that popped into my mind was what did he do? Thinking it was only our house that was affected, I made my way outside. It was then I realized the entire neighborhood was pitch black and our bewildered neighbors all seemed to be looking in our direction. I assumed that he had blown out our house and the entire neighborhood. I was not impressed and told him so.

We scrambled back into the house to grab our phones to see what happened. (We had to use his phone because, just ask Big and Middle Sis, my phone is never charged.) We went onto the Hydro website, and the only update they had was that a crew had been dispatched to the scene of the outage. Great, I thought. Not only will the power company show up at our door, the police will show up and arrest him for causing the outage. Frankly, I was annoyed and the air was tense. My Christmas was on the verge of ruin all because of his carelessness. (Oddly, his only worry was the possibility that his baking would be ruined if the power didn’t come back on soon.)

After what seemed like an eternity, (about 3 hours or so) the power was finally restored. Thank goodness, the Christmas baking was safe, and the power company and the police never showed up. We found out the next morning that my husband was innocent. An eagle had flown into the power lines causing the outage, and it was not just our neighborhood that was affected. The power was out in the surrounding neighborhoods as well. And I felt kind of bad for thinking my husband was the culprit responsible for it all, not to mention that the eagle didn’t make it. ☹️

On a happier note, the Sisterhood is busy enjoying the holiday season and frankly we need a rest. I guess you could even call it a “Christmas Vacation.” So… we will be taking some time off to rest and recharge in preparation for another exciting year of adventure and frivolity beginning in January of 2022. In the meantime, we wish you a joyous time with family and friends and….