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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, December 25, 2000
Dark tidings on light shows
What with today being Christmas and all, it seems only appropriate - mandatory, actually - that we spend our time together this week on a seasonal theme.
In the past, we've looked into such matters as the all-time best Christmas movie ("It's a Wonderful Life" is fine, but in the Peterson home "A Christmas Story" reigns supreme) and the occasional seasonal pressures we encounter: notably, the sheer terror that the phrase "Some Assembly Required" strikes into the hearts of parents everywhere.
This time, however, we're opting for something on the light side. Literally: the Christmas light side.
I don't mean the lights we string on our little indoor trees. That can still be a mildly challenging business, but it's nothing like it was in the days when I was a kid, and Dad had to puzzle out which light in which string was dead before the action could commence.
(There remains, however, the post-light-stringing ritual, in which the spouse who did the stringing-up asks the non-stringing spouse his/her opinion of the distribution of the lights. If the non-participant is wise, he/she will render nothing but effusive praise. There's a time for candor, and there's a time for discretion. Knowing the difference can spare you a world of hurt.)
This year, however, I propose to address the perennially prickly issue of outdoor Christmas light displays.
As I write this, I am a non-player in this particular drama, since I have yet to deploy our (exceedingly modest) seasonal light show. I am, however, intent on having it up and running by Christmas Eve. And that baby's gonna run at least through Twelfth Night . . . maybe right through the Fourth of July.
See, here's the point: Up to now the weather just hasn't been right for it. C'mon: If the temps aren't down in the mid-30s, with a stiff, moisture-laden breeze piercing your pathetically inadequate togs, well, heck, why bother?
I mean, any doofus can string Christmas lights in balmy weather. But if Jack Frost isn't on the scene, it doesn't really count. One man's opinion, to be sure - and one not shared by the other members of our household.
However, there is this one critically important consideration: When (not if - when) our little extravaganza opens up for business, it will be our display, and it will be our chapped and reddened hands that have deployed it, and our muffled curses that have greeted the realization that somehow we strung the first strand backward, leaving the plug dangling in complete futility under the eaves . . . laughing at us.
How else are we to learn? How else are we to build character? I ask you.
I would be the first to admit that there are vastly more impressive displays than ours. I do not feel even the slightest trace of rancor toward the imaginative people who turn their yards into striking, even stunning, fantasylands. No less than the veriest bucolic yokel, I stand agape in wonder at such virtuosity.
However.
It pains me to report that a disquieting new phenomenon has made striking, even alarming, inroads in the world of Yuletide light shows:
People are hiring other people to decorate their yards.
Yes, yes, in America we are entitled to throw our bucks around any darned way we want to. And I concede, too, that this development has generated some useful income for the persons who hire out to do the work. Nor do I deny that some people (CEOs and the like) don't have the time, and some people aren't physically able, to get their own lights deployed.
Somehow, though, it strikes me as ineffably melancholy that whole families are missing out on the drama, the comedy, the pathos and (by no means least) the occasional angst attendant on this annual ritual.
Repent, Corpus Christi! Get out on that ladder in that Force 5 gale and earn yourself some real seasonal cheer! Did our forefathers hire people to string the lights on their sod huts on the great prairie? I think not.
What emerges from your efforts may not achieve the aesthetic perfection of a Beverly Hills shop window, but you know what, pilgrim? It'll be yours - and that'll make all the difference.
(Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Murphy Givens
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