Next Year, He’s Doing the Lights

The Boston Globe

My husband was always the keeper of the lights. For 30 years, he strung them wherever I saw fit in the front yard on everything green, in the backyard on a skinny dogwood, on a small Christmas tree that we put on the deck, inside on a big tree, over the mantle, and above the sliding glass door.

When we were first married (and didn't have a deck or a dogwood), he did these things not with any kind of enthusiasm decorating, (Christmas has never been his passion,) but with resigned acceptance. Translated, this means that I did not hear him curse until the second Christmas we were married.

Granted, he had reason. The tree he'd labored over "There's a bare spot here. You need more lights there. It's leaning to the left. It's leaning to the right," until finally, I said, "It's perfect!" crashed to the floor in the middle of the night. That meant my husband had to start over and do the whole tree-trimming thing again. 

That was the first time I heard "$#!-% -&*-" emanating from his mouth instead of “fa-la-la-la-la.”

But it was not the last.

Which is why 30 years later, I offered to take over the job of tree lighting.

I started with the front yard. A few bushes, a few strings of tiny, white bulbs how difficult could this be?

My husband had packed away the lights in their original boxes and labeled them "outdoor Christmas lights." So, all I had to do was carry them up from the cellar, unpack them, place them on the trees, plug them in and voila! We'd have lights.

And so we did. Beginner's luck, my husband declared.

The next year, I decided to tackle the inside lights, too.

My husband chuckled.

This time the trip to the cellar wasn't quite so nice. The outside lights, which I’d put away, were in a tangled mess mixed in with the inside lights, which I’d also put away, if you can call tossing them in a laundry basket "put away.”

Live and learn.

I spent more time than I should have untangling them but, once again, everything worked.

Two for two, I thought.

Next were the inside lights. I tested them ("Always test them," my husband said). Then I took a set of 300 and wound it around a giant wreath, which I hung over the fireplace. But only half the strand worked. I jiggled the wires. I tightened the bulbs. I fiddled with the extension cord. Nothing. Half the wreath shone and half the wreath was in darkness.

I told myself it was avant-garde and left it there.

On to the tree.

I ran out of lights mid-tree, which meant a trip to the store. And then a box of the new lights didn't work, which I didn't know until I plugged the whole tree in, because who knew you were supposed to test new lights, too? And then there was another trip to the store for an extension cord because I'd used all I had lighting the outside. Oh, and did I mention the blue lights that showed up in the middle of the white ones?

Still, when the job was done, the tree looked beautiful. 

Which brings us to this year.

I did the outside lights and they worked. Then I did the inside lights and they worked, too. I strung, but maybe strung is the wrong word. I positioned each light, starting from the bottom of the tree (because that's what a lighting designer said to do), filling in the inside of the tree (to give it depth), using 16 strings of 100 and testing each. I worked slowly and carefully, and I was fa-la-la-ing the whole time.

And when the tree was finished, lighted by 1,600 bulbs, I stood back and basked in my creation, thinking that this is exactly how God must have felt on the sixth day. And then every single light went out.

You're not supposed to string together more than three sets of lights. That's what it says on the box. And that's what my son pointed out when I stopped screaming. He got the lights to work again. He bought some extension cords and some adapters, plugged and unplugged a few things. Eventually I stopped making animal sounds.

All's well that ends well. Sort of. Two nights ago, the lights on the outside Christmas tree burned out. I replaced them. Last night, the lights on the garland over the sliding glass stopped working. I am ignoring this.

"Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la," my husband sings.

"*& %#!!!!," I mumble.

Next year, he's doing the lights.