Deck The Halls

I love Christmas!

I have at least 7 large, very large, storage tubs filled with holiday decorations (and a few random boxes as well.) I started acquiring decorations as soon as I rented my very first house in college. With the exception of last year because we went to Iowa for Christmas, I have always decorated the inside of my house, put up a tree and soaked up the holiday cheer. I used to spend a whole weekend hanging lights outside as well. Once we moved to the country however, I didn't get the same pleasure I did from the outside lights - the only people living creatures that got to appreciate them have were the horses and the hundreds of little cotton tail rabbits that scurry around the yard at night. I have not hung lights since 2005.

But now we have kids!!!

Our Brown Eyed Girl absolutely L-O-V-E-S to find the "pretties" on our way home each evening. Some nights, I will even take the long way home through several neighborhoods to look at all the lights. I cherish those longer drives home.

So I told our Handy Man to get ready because we were doing the tree, the decorations and by-golly, we were hanging lights this year!

This was my inspiration. This is a house in my in-laws' neighborhood.

I was determined to transform our little house on the prairie into a mirror image of this house. I have millions of lights. I can do this!

I put the kids down for a nap and told my Handy Man to get ready, it was time for lights - he might have looked in my direction as I walked out of the house but I am pretty sure that was the only muscle he moved.

I went to the cat house and dug out an old box I knew had all most of my outdoor lights.

Yikes! It had been a while since I had looked in that box. The box had been compromised - in other words, it was no longer sealed, and what I found inside was more than just lights. Wasp cocoons, dirt, cat hair and some one had used it as a littler box for lord knows how long!!!

Miss Kitty, I pray it was that old tomcat that used to hang around or you are in trouble.

What to do now???

These were all of my ice-cycle type lights. I spent a lot of money on these babies when I was a poor college student.

I think I can get the hose out and still make this work.

And rubber gloves...

One down and a whole lot of yuck left to go.

After flooding the frozen yard with the hose, spraying petrified cat poop and rock hard wasp cocoons, I was finally getting somewhere. My fingers were numb and I needed a break from the hose before we had a skating pond out front.

Off to get the ladder.

Hanging lights really involves a lot of crap.

Time to test the first string. They still work!

Get those hung just like that... perfect.

Strand number two, test her to make sure she works...Bzzzzzzzz

Yow-zer! That stung a little.

I think I just got shocked.

Let's just try this one again...Bzzzzzz

Yep! That's hot! Okay... hmmmmm

Let me tray another strand... Bzzzzzzzzz

Holy Mother of.... Wow! That has quite a little punch to it.

I think my fingers are still numb.

Crap.

After further examination, it appears the years of cat pee had eaten away at the wires and caused the plug-ins to turn this green-ish color that I assumed was an equivalent of rust. The fact that they were still wet from the hose probably didn't help matters much either when I plugged them in to the outlet.

What to do?

Plan B.

Thank goodness I have a million strands of lights.

I spent the next hour or so hanging plain old clear lights on the house. Handy Man helped reach the tall peaks of the roof line and suggested I decorate a couple of our trees with colored lights. I was so excited for it to get dark!

After I was all finished and I had put away my mess, I realized one more small hiccup. I was just be-bopping away to my iPod and wasn't very strategic in how I placed my lights. The pug-in was at one end of the house, the outlet was in the middle by the door.

Good Lord!

Off to find an extension cord.

The only extension cord we had left that wasn't being used to power one of four water tank heaters was about 10 feet too short.

Son of a....

Standing on the porch looking for answers to fall from the sky another proverbial light bulb went off. How the heck am I supposed to light the trees in the yard that are now adorned in lights?

I quit!

About that time, Handy Man pops his head out from the house and asked me how it was coming. After delivering the news, he just chuckled and walked back inside.

"Shut up Richard!" (from the movie Tommy Boy)

A week later we finally had at least one extension cord that could reach the outlet.

I have given up on trying to light the trees.

They still have lights hanging from their branches. I have no motivations to remove them at this point.

Here are the fruits of my labors.

We sure aren't the Griswolds, but our Brown Eyed Girl thinks that they are pretty!