As pre-holiday traditions go, putting up the Christmas lights can make a day after Thanksgiving trip to the mall an enjoyable shopping experience. However, both can be a risk to life and limb — one involves volts of electricity and balancing precariously on an actual tree limb; the other a white-headed granny trying to separate your limb from the last TMX Elmo. 'Tis the season where you can end up in the emergency room courtesy of twinkling lights or a 125 pound lady named Maude.
Not one to go toe-to-toe over a toy doll, I opted to take my chances with the lights this past weekend. Although I normally adhere to the practice of stringing Christmas lights closer to said holiday — often wrongly perceived as procrastination or plain laziness — this year I chucked my winter coat for short sleeves. While the weather didn't look a lot like Christmas, the practically of functioning fingers without frostbite won out.
For a second I almost felt like I was in Florida slapping at mosquitoes while setting up an inflatable Frosty the Snowman among the palm trees.
While I didn't have to ward off blood-sucking insects, I was about to get bit by the ten volt wire ghost of Christmas past. It happens every year: the green light strands I dutifully coiled up in January end up in knots more convoluted than an episode of Lost. It took me about a half-hour to untangle this unholy mess, but I still had a smile on my face. An odd expression because normally my clenched jaw would have frozen — literally — into a Dick Cheney sneer. However, the real reason for my put-on Christmas cheer probably had something to do with the four-year-old watching me out the window.
Now rather than run willy-nilly adorning every shrub, tree and domesticated animal in sight, I methodically plugged in each strand to test the bulbs. I also hauled out the World's Largest Ball of Orange Extension Cords from the garage and a stepladder that always comes up a rung too short. After stringing miles of white lights connected to extension cords in a manner that would make Rube Goldberg scratch his head, the moment of truth was at hand. I plugged the lights in and for a few glorious seconds the yard was lit up like LaGuardia Airport or Uncle Mac on New Year's Eve. Then one strand flickered twice and went black.
Obviously this is one pre-holiday moment that is neither holly nor jolly.
I wiggled wires and tapped bulbs searching for an apparent electrical grinch. I'm about ready to mutter a few four-letter words that don't include ho-ho when I realize that I've become my father. Twenty-nine years ago it was my dad standing on the stepladder — probably on the same step with red letter warnings written by teams of ladder company attorneys — cursing a strand of multi-colored bulbs no doubt covered in lead-based paint.
For what seemed like hours, I watched my father match wits with red, green, blue and orange 60 watt bulbs. Every year the scenario played out the same: See daddy plug in lights. See every other bulb turn on. See daddy climb ladder and wiggle wires. See bulbs light up. See daddy climb down ladder. See half the strand go out. See daddy climb ladder and replace bulbs. See bulbs light up. See daddy climb down ladder. See bulbs blink and blow a fuse. See daddy do the same.
Two decades later, I'm balancing on the stepladder wiggling wires when I discover the root cause of all my frustration — me. It seems that Christmas lights only work when you plug them in all the way. Yeah, pretty dimwitted, but a bruised ego hurts a lot less than a forearm shiver from Maude.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com