This weekend I went out and hung lights on the carport and porch. It was much easier than I thought. Somehow hanging lights outside always fell to the men in the family. When I was a child, my dad engaged in a very elaborate lighting scheme which involved a staple gun, a very tall ladder, and shinnying along the roofline in the cold wind every December. It was an arduous, dangerous, all-day job, wrapping up just at dusk. Then he would come in, windblown, cold and smelling of Dad. When it got dark, my mom and I would go out to the street and my dad would turn them on from inside, and then come out with us to oo and Ah and soak up the praise we gave him for lighting another Merry Christmas.
When I was a single woman (the first time), I would put up some lights around the front porch and around the windows inside. I was always really lazy about it, though. I used clear packing tape outside and generally just draped lights over existing curtain rods inside. My father's sense of a Job Well Done was probably appalled when he saw my jerry-rigged systems. The tree was the same way. Always a tangle of lights, sometimes going all the way around, sometimes just zigzagging back and forth across the front of the tree. It was always a nightmare to take them down because they inevitably got tangled.
Then when I was married, Gray would do lights on the house and bushes. He was very particular about how they were done, too, and we never agreed on whether we should have all one color, or mixed lights or if there should be some sort of pattern. I always favored mixed lights, no pattern. He of course always wanted something more organized. I generally won.
I remember the first Christmas after my friend Jin got divorced, and she told me I should stay married just so I would have someone to hang lights for me. We laughed because of course we didn't know then what was coming a few years later for me. But when it happened, I sort of saw her point. Hanging lights outside seemed really really like a pain in the ass.
Last year I reverted to my old single-girl technique and just went out with a chair and wrapped some lights around posts and stair rails on the front porch, but it seemed inadequate. It's time to adapt, I decided. I can't leave gaps where the Man of My Life used to be. And I've got a kid now, I can't do things in the slapdash fashion I did in my twenties. I'll go out and hang my own damned lights.
So I did. I borrowed a ladder from my neighbors – who, being the sweet, grandparently pair they are, were very concerned for my safety due to the wind this weekend – and I got some fancy plastic hookie things from Walmart and I went to work. I had this image of my dad up there on the roof in the wind, wielding his staple gun. But it wasn't such a big deal. There were a few minutes of head-scratching at first to figure out how to use the hooks... but then it went pretty quickly and easily. No packing tape or staples required, and when I plugged them in they (mostly) all worked. And Grayson was delighted when we got home Sunday night after he'd been at his dad's house and they were up and on. So There.
When I was a single woman (the first time), I would put up some lights around the front porch and around the windows inside. I was always really lazy about it, though. I used clear packing tape outside and generally just draped lights over existing curtain rods inside. My father's sense of a Job Well Done was probably appalled when he saw my jerry-rigged systems. The tree was the same way. Always a tangle of lights, sometimes going all the way around, sometimes just zigzagging back and forth across the front of the tree. It was always a nightmare to take them down because they inevitably got tangled.
Then when I was married, Gray would do lights on the house and bushes. He was very particular about how they were done, too, and we never agreed on whether we should have all one color, or mixed lights or if there should be some sort of pattern. I always favored mixed lights, no pattern. He of course always wanted something more organized. I generally won.
I remember the first Christmas after my friend Jin got divorced, and she told me I should stay married just so I would have someone to hang lights for me. We laughed because of course we didn't know then what was coming a few years later for me. But when it happened, I sort of saw her point. Hanging lights outside seemed really really like a pain in the ass.
Last year I reverted to my old single-girl technique and just went out with a chair and wrapped some lights around posts and stair rails on the front porch, but it seemed inadequate. It's time to adapt, I decided. I can't leave gaps where the Man of My Life used to be. And I've got a kid now, I can't do things in the slapdash fashion I did in my twenties. I'll go out and hang my own damned lights.
So I did. I borrowed a ladder from my neighbors – who, being the sweet, grandparently pair they are, were very concerned for my safety due to the wind this weekend – and I got some fancy plastic hookie things from Walmart and I went to work. I had this image of my dad up there on the roof in the wind, wielding his staple gun. But it wasn't such a big deal. There were a few minutes of head-scratching at first to figure out how to use the hooks... but then it went pretty quickly and easily. No packing tape or staples required, and when I plugged them in they (mostly) all worked. And Grayson was delighted when we got home Sunday night after he'd been at his dad's house and they were up and on. So There.
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