The Lighting of the Christmas Tree

The mad dash to be the first on the street to light up for Christmas is on! I got a jump start this year. I put up the outside Christmas lights on a balmy mid-November day a couple of weeks ago. Now I just have to hope they work.

I came in second. Just as I topped off the tree, the neighbor's house lit up and temporarily blinded me. That makes me mad. Later today I'm scheduled to go over to the nephew's palace. No danger of being outdone there. He has no neighbors. Supposedly he has all the Christmas decorations I will need laid out in the living room. We'll see. He's purchased some extras because I suggested it would be nice to have more than Budweiser beer cans, a Larry Bird decoration, and a blow-up Santa to work with.

The kids scatter when I put the tree up, and wait for my summons to attend the "lighting of the tree". They know to ooh and aah on cue, as their mother has trained them well. This year is a little special. I have come up with yet another bright Christmas idea that will astound them, I'm sure. It's called my three way purple Christmas tree.

I'm sure you all remember "My Purple Tree" poem. ( I'd put the link in here, but I can't remember where I put the instructions that Patricia sent me, and if I ask Greenhill again, she'll make me cry.) So, not only have I completed decorating my purple tree, but the extra perk is that I can change its colors from purple to white to purple and white.

Trouble the puppy thinks it's a bummer that I moved his chair away from the window. He can't spend the afternoon in the chair slobbering on the window, waiting for Gram to come home, and he just mopes around looking for a way to get to the window. Gram thinks I should have thought about that before I set up the tree.

I make a big deal of this, because it takes me a couple of days to get everything just right. Well, "right" may not be the "right" word. "Anally perfect" would be how the kids describe it. Seven minutes past four yesterday was completion time, and by four fifteen, everyone was lined up for the "lighting of the tree".

The palms of my hands were sweaty and my head was pounding in anticipation of the glorious event. I began to wonder about electrical shock, but my health and well-being were second when it came to the joy I was about to bestow on my loving family, especially the blessed children.

I told everyone to close their eyes. I thought I heard the middle child groan, but my niece later told me I had been mistaken. Stage one. I plugged in the top cord and the room became bathed in the soft glow of a tropical shade of twilight. "Eyes open!" I command. One by one, led by the niece, voices, like the tinkling of Christmas bells, chimed "Ooooooh!" They had practiced well.

Stage two. I unplugged purple and plugged in white. "Eyes open!" I repeated. The "Aaaaaahs" sounded a little weak this time, but livened up after the little guy got head slapped. The niece didn't think I saw her.

The grand finale. Stage three. I began to think this "stage" thing sounded like a disease. I plugged purple back in. "Eyes open!" I shouted in glee. At that precise time, the phone rang and there was a stampede to answer it. The cat got stepped on and jumped smack dab in the middle of the Christmas village. The snow stuck to her paws, and Trouble just wanted to help her get the snow off, as the sister later explained, when he stepped on one of my treasured Austrian bells.

The "lighting of the tree" actually went better than expected. Two out of three ain't bad. The children had been well trained, and were somewhat believable. Their grandmother and mother had passed on their knowledge that sucking up and oohing and aahing is easier than listening to me grumbling incessantly about Christmas "giving". Now for the "lighting of the outside".

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