I Must Have Lived in New England A Little Too Long…
December 6, 2005
…because I’m having a hard time with the “Lights Alive!” Light Brite displays on people’s houses this holiday season.
I’m all for “decking the halls”, and besides, It’s your electric bill. Me? Not so much.
Hubby and I have signed a pact in blood (It’s in our safe deposit box, I swear!) that we will never, ever, string lights on our house like a movie marquee. Hang lights from the eaves? Not this chica. I will admit that one year I caved and bought a box of those hanging icicle light strings and thought briefly about putting them up when we owned a condo, but thankfully leveler heads prevailed and they remained safely tucked away in a box, to be later returned to Wal-Mart. (The return was successful, thanks for asking. I am the Queen of Return, you know. Family members will vouch.)
Usually, though, it’s a pretty simple display. A nice wreath on the door, a decorated tree in the window*, a few strings of white lights in a tree right outside my big tall window, and those electric candlesticks in the front windows, all on timers that go click when they shut off for the night. That click is very important. Dunno why, it just is.
Sadly, I missed the memo that all my neighbors got saying that the one house with the most lights wins, and if they blink and scroll and you have the blow up Santa and that infernal (but actually really cute) snow globe thingy in the Lowe’s commercial on your lawn; you are fit to be in my ‘hood. Yep, that memo completely missed my house.
I have a wreath on my door. That is as far as I have gotten in my holiday decor.
And I’m surprisingly okay with that for now.
But. These. Lights!!! ARGH!!!
I passed by my son’s room (they currently sleep in M’s room, he has bunk beds, and a small TV with a VCR attached to it. (Let’s just say one bribe on a desperate evening turned into a nightly habit, and just leave it at that, shall we?) There is a decent crack underneath the door that slightly glows when said TV is on, and usually it is dark once the sleep timer has gone off. Tonight, however, this was not the case. So as I bust in, loaded with my can of “what the heck is your light doing on?!?” whoop azz, I quickly realize the lights are not, in fact, on. The boys (thankfully!) didn’t flinch, but a sort of radioactive glow is emanating from the window, whose blinds are shut tight.
It is then I realize that my neighbors have “decked their halls”.
And mine.
Yay.
*For the record, yes we have a tree. We also have a Menorah, and sing songs and light candles for Hanukkah. My boys give for Hanukkah, and receive presents on Christmas. This is what happens when a nice Episcopalian boy marries a nice Jewish girl and they have kids. Since religion didn’t play too much (actually, not at all) into our decision to marry, we decided to go with traditions from each of our childhoods, and sort the rest out later. It works for us, and our kids seem to dig it too.
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Hubby called me all exhausted and culture shocked. Not liking this business trip and what it’s doing to my man. You know he’s not himself when he comments that it costs $1-something a minute just to talk to me, and yet keeps right on talking. Not that I minded. When we dated, we would regularly run up large phone bills monthly. (He lived there, I lived here, and not in the same state, actually several states away.) This call reminded me of those times.
They sucked then too.
5 days and counting. Missing you. Loving you.
What I’m Rocking On The Zen: Roisin Murphy: Ruby Blue.
M even likes this. See, TV can broaden horizons. I would never have heard this artist had I not watched Grey’s Anatomy. Had I not checked out the Music Guide and downloaded many of the songs from the show, burned them onto disk, and played them ad nauseum in my soccer-mom mini-van, my son wouldn’t have heard of her either. Music, I tell you, brings people together. Believe it.
