Christmas lights

 I don’t do Christmas lights.  In fact, I don’t do any Christmas decorations at all.  I don’t even have a tree.  I have a fake ficus with white lights strung in it that my ex wife left when she moved out.  I plug it in once a year and take a picture of it and send to people who can’t understand why I don’t have a tree. I love to look at other people’s lights, but I don’t want to put any up  

There are several reasons for this.  First, if you put that stuff up, you have to take it down. 

 Second, my ex wife went overboard decorating for Christmas.  She had literally hundreds of Santas all over the house.  Every kind of Christmas do-dad she could find.  And a huge tree with thousands of lights and so many ornaments it was groaning. The house was about to explode with all that crap.  I couldn’t find anything because every surface was covered with some decoration or another.  In the property settlement, she wanted all the Christmas stuff and I gladly let her have it all. 

Third, and probably most important, my father.  Starting in the mid 1980s, a guy down the road started decorating his lawn with thousands and thousands of lights.  I swear it was visible from space.  Well Ole Fred wasn’t going to let Richard get anything on him.  So Daddy made it his mission to put up more lights than Richard!  Every shrub, every tree, the house, the driveway, every window, had lights.  He had several outlets wired outside to run all the lights. He even got the local power company lineman to take his bucket truck and hang a rope and pulley on top of an old two-way radio antenna so he could hang a star.  Guess who got charged with building said star!  I took 1/2” rebar and my handy dandy welder and made him a star. He covered it with white lights, tied on an extension cord and up it went, 60 feet in the air!  He and I made a buying trip to Texas one year and we drove by a place that had strands of lights hanging from trees. Hundreds!  He had several dozen pine trees around the house, so the next day, we were on ladders hanging more lights.  Once again, I swear it was visible from space!  A local civic club held a Christmas light contest every year.  It got to where either Daddy or Richard won every year and people started to complain!  They finally made a special category for Daddy, Richard, and the Franklin family who lived the other side of town, just so everyone else could have a chance to win the prize!  

Now my house is between Daddy’s and Richard’s.  For a few years I would hang lights in the shape of a tree from the gable on the front of my house.  I even won the contest one year after they took Daddy, Richard, and the Franklins out of the contest!  Finally I said I couldn’t compete with the two of them on either side so I just quit.  Then after my divorce, living alone, I just wasn’t into it.  So I don’t do anything.  As I said, once a year I put presents under the ficus, plug in the lights, and take a picture. That’s enough for me.

Merry Christmas everyone.


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