When I was a wee child we never had Christmas lights so when I grew up I thought I should. I tried out one string on the garage roof in Albuquerque. That was good. I wished for a whole house lined with lights but one string was better than none. When we moved to the great white north we bought a house with wickedly high roofs. You would need a cherry picker to line the house. I settled for the the garage roof again. I dangled off our six foot step ladder hanging icicle lights. I almost gave the construction workers next door a stroke one year hanging lights in a snow storm. They were quite sure I was going to end up flat on the driveway. I didn't but it was touch and go. One year Karl dangled off the ladder for me but that was just as dangerous for any number of reasons. Last year I hoisted some lights up on our trees using a broom. Well a broom and a ladder. None of these attempts has ever been really satisfying. They aren't satisfying because a few trees or the front door and the garage roof is not the whole house! What I want is icicles dripping from every roof line or better yet the whole house outlined in magenta lights...
Of course after the holidays you have the problem of how to get them down. Taking lights down in a snow storm is not nearly as entertaining as putting them up in a snow storm. And by January ice has built up on the driveway adding an extra element of fun. And then there are all the complaints about wasted electricity. But the more I write the more I realize I will need those lights again maybe just to the break the gloom of December.
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6 comments:
You could hire some squirrels to run the lights up.
We used to trim our house in lights... looked nice; and I never took them down... just plugged them in again after Thanksgiving each year. Things went well for about 5 years, then gaps started appearing and the display took on a trailer trash appearance so I just took them down, and now all of our decoration is on the inside with the exception of the wreath on the door which arrives from Granville around the middle of December.
We are definitely an anomaly as UT has a big Christmas decoration culture. The Boy Scouts will be along soon to sell us 25 small paper bags, a shopping bag full of sand, and 25 candles so that we can line our sidewalks with "luminaries" on Christmas Eve. Looks cool for a while if everyone in the neighborhood does it, but it is a real pain to set up and then light all those candles inside a paper bag. Who invents this stuff???
In my first house I had the same thought, lights everywhere, but ended up with a string across the garage. This eventually led to three strings, the garage and along the front walk. When we had our next house built the electrician convinced us the of ease of having outlets in the soffets and a timer running them. Then we got the bill for this nifty addition and now I feel complied to get my moneys worth each year. Because we have a single story house I don't have the 'cherry picker' need but there is one eave on the garage that requires some courage and a steady ladder to complete. I've tried to ease my efforts in two ways with the lights. One; I got tried of moving the ladder every three feet to continue to hang the string of lights. So a few years ago bought a crap load of cup hangers and screwed them into the eaves every two feet or so. I then took an old closet rod and attached a small metal hook to it. I use the rod to reach the eaves and hook the string of lights to each cup hook. For the single eaves I can just walk along and hook them. For the gable ends I still need a ladder but can cover about eight feet at a time and don't need to stand on top of a ten foot ladder and reach up to a sixteen foot gable. Taking them down is a breeze also. Two; is to string a lot of them together so that there are not miles of extension cords running everywhere. To accomplish this you need special fuzes in the lines. The ones that come with the lights don't lend themselves to too many lines being connected together. You can't find these special fuzes in the electrical section of your local hardware store. You find them in the bin marked '#2 nail' Take these 6 inch fuzes and cut them down to the same size as the original fuzes that come with the lights and replace the old with the new. You can now string as many lights together as you like. Be warned, these new fuzes are not UL approved and the likelihood of small fires are now present.
I've done different displays over the years, but have done the same thing for the past few years. A wreath on a two foot ring hung on the deck (one flight up) that I cover with white lights. Last year I added a smaller strand of red lights to the white ones and it gave some added pizazz. I put the lights on the wreath inside (where it's warm) then go out and climb the eight foot ladder with the wreath over my shoulder. I then make several trips up and down the ladder to see if the wreath is straight, the lights are appropriately spaced and so on. For years I went out each evening and plugged the lights in and then back out before bed to unplug them. Last year I (finally!) smartened up and invested in a timer. Now they come on at dusk and off 6 hours later...it's magic! The wreath usually goes up after dark, so it's cold and hoofing up and down the ladder is mildly dangerous if no one is around but when I pull in the driveway after work and there's the wreath shining at me, it's all worth it.
I'm afraid I don't have any Christmas light hanging horror stories. I do love to see the lights, but somehow in Florida they don't have the same effect that they do when it is cold and maybe snowy. However I do decorate. I bought an old fashioned Father Christmas at a garage sale. He is simply a T shaped stick draped with a burlap bag with a head and raffia for a beard. Around his head he has a headband with jingle bells on it. I prop him up on my front porch because if I stuck him in the ground outside I'm sure someone would take him. Next to him I set my tomato cage upside down and wire the bottom together at the top so it is shaped like a Christmas tree and string white lights on that and down the hand rails of my porch. Yesterday as I was loading my car to come to Tamara's a man walked by and asked me if I was going to put Father Christmas out again this year. I said I was and he said good, because it makes my Christmas. So, you never know. It kind of made my day to hear him say that.
Tomato cages! Thanks Marion that is a rockin good idea!
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