All the way back in early November, my dad and I put up the Christmas Lights. Dad switched to LED lights, and got rid of the bulky, draining bulbs of years past. In his eagerness, my dad brought home from work, a twenty-six foot, telescopic pole with which to adorn the tree outdoors. Apparently, years ago I had made mention that the tree should be lit, you know, when the tree was about fifteen feet tall. But now, oh now, it so happens to be closer to forty feet.
I got home to do some unwinding and dad had already began to unstring and plug in the LEDs. Mom was helping with that process as dad stepped outside to try to hook the end of the lights on the top of the tree. He had made a loop and was trying (might I say in a tragically comedic fashion) to loop it on top. From the ground. I, in my youthful dissidence and self-awareness that what he was doing was impossible, stepped outside to watch this display. After a few attempts it was definitely a failed try, I offered my hand. I stood on the planter, which is about seven feet off the ground, next to the stairs, and I am about six feet tall. Add the twenty-six foot telescopic pole, and I have a closer chance to land this puppy.
After my own attempts, many close calls, too, it was done. This was about a half hour endeavour, for me, about a forty-five minute trial for dad. The first step.
Mom had made supper and we went inside and ate, then resumed our work. We had brought many strings outside to hold as we walk around the tree, stringing up the lights. It was a slow and painful process, with much craning of the necks, and much stress on the shoulders. We took turns stringing, often dropping the strand or getting caught in the branches. At one point, after we had made a round and a half, and strung perhaps twelve circular feet, we had decided to find a flashlight. Instead of the commands “Up there!” or “To the left a bit…No up!..A little more“, we could now point with clear certainty that “No, THAT is the branch to go over…” with the light aimed at a particular spot.
With more time taken up by slow, progressive circling, I had the grand idea of the scaffold. My dad had made a make-shift movable platform for washing the windows and painting the house, and this would add five feet to my height, and make the rounds slightly easier. Since I was the son, the nimble specimen of youth and agility; the one best suited to night vision, constant climbing on and off of the scaffold; and hey, the one that wanted this in the first place - I was the one to be the primary scaffolder/light arranger. And so it was.
With our progress slow, and paced, we circled the tree, round and round. The early November weather was brisk, yet warm enough for me to spend the night in my thrift store cardigan and British newsboy cap, and so I looked like quite the gaffer. By the time the lights were fifteen feet to the ground, we let go of the scaffold, and went back to just the pole. A few neighbours stopped by to compliment, and make comments, and we listened and bantered, or at least dad did. I decided to finish up the progress. Before long, we were using our own arms to finish the last bits of branch and brush, and at two feet left, I requested amnesty. I retreated back to the house where I had intended to spend a quiet November evening alone. To my surprise, the lights had taken from me three compiled hours, and I was sore in new places.
Ah, but now, with snow on the ground and winter in the air, the lights look quite in place. Every time I turn the corner to my house, I see the tree a-lit and a-glow and I know that even though the wind and snow have knocked down some strands; and looking at it from certain angles shows a deceptive shoddiness; it was constructed out of heart and love, and a childhood desire… and that there is no way that I am going to occupy any more time to fixing it this season, because I learned something. Even though things you do can be the most rewarding, things like this always look better when someone else does it.
