CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Since we had the only house in the neighborhood without Christmas decorations and fearing that someone would take percussive action against us I decided it would be best to put up some decorations. I went through my Mom's Christmas boxes. The lights we had used last year were a mess. Most of the light strings were short (and obviously cheap) and I wasn't so sure they were even designed for outside use. Some had melted plastic. I'm sure my Mom had bought this crap at the dollar store. And to top it off, we had just thrown them in the box after last year and they were a tangled mess which I didn't feel like sorting through and testing. So I went off to Walmart to buy some new decorations.

The first thing that caught my eye at Walmart was a huge inflatable Santa. It would make the perfect centerpiece for my outdoor display. It was on sale for $44.99 so I got it. I bought six 60-foot strings of lights for nearly $100. At 150 lights per string that was 900 lights. I planned to weave them all through the bushes in front of the house. That should light up the whole front of the house in Christmas cheer.

I started putting up the Santa first. I plugged it in. There was a sucking sound and I was horrified to see the Santa being sucked into the motor. The switch was set on deflate. Crap! I managed to get Santa untangled from the motor. He had a small tear on his leg. I fixed it with duct tape. (Why not? It holds my car together, too.) I put the switch on inflate and plugged it back it. Santa began to rise up. Then to my chagrin I noticed that one of the guy lines was wrapped around his neck. Santa's face was turning blue and his gloved hands went up to his neck. I turned it off but it was too late. I had killed Santa. I put the rest of the guy lines in place so he would stand straight up and wouldn't blow around in the wind. Maybe no one would notice that I had a strangled Santa on my lawn, well, after nightfall anyway.

Now on to the lights. I got the ones that are wired in series. That means if one bulb goes out, they all do. I was considering getting parallel wired strings in which the other bulbs stay on when one goes out; but they have a tendency to overheat after you have several bulbs out. I didn't want to burn down the bushes (or the house). I tested all the strings. They all worked. I spent the next two hours carefully weaving the strings through the bushes. This was gonna look beautiful at night. I plugged everything in and it worked. I couldn't wait to see it at night.

I used an electric eye so everything would light up as soon as it was dark. I used an adapter in the porch light socket and the light socket over the screen room door so we had no outside lighting except for the Christmas lights. At last night came. I hurried outside. The lights were great. They lit up the bushes and gave the whole front of the house a warm glow. With the lights all on in the background, you couldn't tell that Santa was dead in front. From the street it looked fantastic but there was one spot where the spacing of the lights was a little off. I tugged on the string to adjust it. Everything went out. I must have loosened a bulb. But where? Which one (or more) of the 900 bulbs? I started checking bulb by bulb. Yeah right! For about the first hundred maybe. Then I said to myself, screw this. I went to the dollar store and bought a 2-foot Christmas tree that lights up. I put it on the table at the front of the screen room. It could be seen from the street and looked quite nice. All bright and cheery Christmas reds, yellows, and blues.

So that was that. Inside the house we scattered stuff about the living room and dining room: a candle set that spelled "NOEL", a manger scene, some angels, some elves and some gold foil and tinsel. The next night I went outside to look at our display. The lights in the bushes were still out. The Florida sun had changed the colors on the little Christmas tree. No more reds, yellows and blues. I viewed everything from the street. My house was all dark, there was a garroted Santa on the front lawn and a ghostly bluish light coming from the screen room. "Happy Frigging Halloween Everyone!!!"