The Christmas Light Scrooge

Well, it’s that time of year again, when my wife looks around at the neighbors’ houses and asks me, “Can we hang Christmas lights?”

And of course by we, she means me. And by hang lights, she means for me to first find the lights somewhere in the black hole which we call our garage and then untangle the lights and then spend the better half of a day climbing a ladder and clipping lights the roof of my house while trying not to fall on my ass. ‘Tis the season and all that jazz.

I don’t know about you, but in my world, big guys, a slight fear of heights, and ladders are not the best combination for a holly jolly Christmas.

I wasn’t always a Christmas Lights Scrooge.

I enjoy looking at houses all decorated for the season. You know, provided I wasn’t the one that had to do all the decorating. I even broke from my longstanding tradition of not hanging lights. Once. Two years ago, I spent a butt load (which I believe Webster’s defines as several hundreds of dollars more than an item’s worth) of money on lights to surprise my wife. My dad even came over and helped me, since he is the kind of guy who can pretty much do any handy activity you can imagine and I’m the kind of guy who can, … well, … write about any activity you can imagine?

Though the lights looked okay, they were a huge pain to put up, as the clips kept falling off. Once they were hung, the lights which were supposed to blink and which I paid a premium for because they were of the blinking variety, refused to do the only thing they were designed to do—blink!

The following year was our super poor Christmas, where we didn’t have money to do much of anything, much less buy working lights and send the power company even more money than we already send them on a monthly basis. So even though it was a lightless Christmas, my wife didn’t complain. Thankfully, none of my neighbors seemed in the Christmas spirit either, so it wasn’t as if we were the only house without lights.

I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to outdoor Christmas decorations. Who really benefits from them? Other than kids, other people looking at your house, and the power companies, which I’m pretty sure are the ones who invented this whole “let’s string up a zillion lights outside our houses to celebrate Christmas” thing?

If Baby Jesus didn’t need 4,000 strands of blinking, twinkling, multicolored bulbs, then we don’t either.

So as this year’s holiday season was kicking into gear, I figured I would be in the clear again. We don’t really have money to do anything, Poor Christmas 2.0, and three of my immediate neighbors are all new to the neighborhood. In fact, the guy across the street Just Moved In last week. Surely, he’s not going to have time to put lights up, with all the unpacking and moving in stuff he has to tend to.

Last night, I walked outside and though it was 8 p.m., the block was lit up like an alien spacecraft was hovering overhead. Only it wasn’t aliens, but rather my new neighbor, who had turned his house into a Holly Jolly Winter Wonderland of Lights.

Son of a bitch!

Not to be outdone, the other neighbors, including the new ones, have also put lights up on their homes. Even the elderly woman down the street, the one who needs help walking, put a string of lights on top of her bushes, which in my book doesn’t count, but whatever. Is everybody out to make me look bad this year?

My wife looked out the window and said, “Whoa, it’s the Griswolds’ Christmas! Aw, it’s so pretty.” (…and then she added…) “Can we hang Christmas lights?”

She then recalled how she saw the new neighbor outside all day long putting lights up.

“He must be a pro or something,” she said admiringly. Perhaps she was trying to use some subtle wifely manipulation. If I admire someone else’s handiwork at putting lights up, I’ll inspire David to do the same?

“A pro?” I reasoned, “well, I’m a pro writer and artist so if you want me to draw you some Christmas lights or maybe write about them, I can certainly deliver!”

So, Merry Christmas, honey! I hope you enjoyed this post!

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