He always lights up my life

I’ve been married for 25 years and every year I forget how much my husband hates Christmas lights. It’s not that he doesn’t like to look at them, he just hates putting them up.

The first Christmas we were in our house I was baffled by his resistance. I was excited to be a homeowner and to participate in what I considered a rite of passage for our new home and neighborhood. We had even purchased a real tree and found a beautiful angel topper that we still own to this day. She has gold tinsel wings that reflect the “candles” she holds in her hands. I ended up putting the tree lights on myself. The tree was small so it was no big deal.

I think up until our children were born we only had lights for the tree. Then one Christmas I decided we were going to deck out our yard like some of the neighbors. On my own I went out and purchased a bunch of traditional outdoor lights. My husband wasn’t having anything to do with it. He absolutely refused to help. So I got a ladder and did my best to attach the lights along the front of the house. He lent a hand when I was in peril, but grumbled the whole while.

The following year, I got all the lights out of storage and discovered they weren’t as cooperative as they were when they were new and packaged up nicely, working, and not survived for a year in the attic. That’s when I finally found out why my husband was the way he was – his family’s ritual was to attempt to assist their father through his rantings and ravings over the stupid, tangled, nonworking lights.

As most people know, Christmas lights are fickle beasts. Especially the older ones. If one light didn’t work, none of the lights on the string worked. And I, because of my insistence on having lights in the first place, was then in charge forever more, of untangling the strings and going through each and every light unplugging and replugging them until I figured out the winning combination. A Christmas miracle!

And really, it was. Humpf. Christmas lights are such a pain. No wonder my next door neighbor has one string of lights, and only one string across the front of his house. Christmas lights are probably the basis of the Grinch story. It was really Dr. Seuss’s commentary about how he felt about Christmas lights.

For several years I put lights up over the yard, fence, large Japanese maple, the old car planter. Our compromise was my husband was in charge of electrifying it when he got home from work. He gathered all the extension cords and cord reels from his shop and plugged everything in. I eventually got tired of stringing them all myself and sorting the lights out, so now we’re down to our front patio and whatever tree is right next to the porch (the present one is about 2-feet tall).

What is really funny is every year I forget about my husband’s disdain for Christmas lights. Each year it takes me time to remember why he’s resisting installing them, until I finally do it myself. This year, however, I had my hands full with other tasks and absolutely insisted he handle the lights. We went to the store and bought new LED lights that said “stay-lit” on the box. After he finished, we stood back and christened it a Christmas porch. I knew he was capable of lighting up my life. He always has before.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh by Gretchen Leigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Life section.