Making It A Choice Christmas

It often seems as if Christmas time is all about making choices. See? I just made one right there; choosing to use the traditional name of the holiday instead of the secularly sanitized euphemism, “Holiday season.” But this column is not an update from that battlefront.

 
The Christmas choices I’m thinking about involve much less weighty decisions. Like whether or not I should put up every string of outdoor lights that we have accumulated in our warehouse of decorations? Do the lights have to follow every inch of roofline and wrap hundreds of times around each tree trunk and porch pillar? Does every exterior window really need to be framed with twinkling lights? Wouldn’t a simple line of lights along the eaves suffice this year?

While I’m making lighting choices, should this be the year I finally acquiesce to my wife’s annual “suggestion” that we try all-white lights instead of our customary, time-honored, it’s-how-our-kids-were-raised, passed-down-from-generation-to-generation, the-axis-of-the-earth-will-shift-if-we-break-with-tradition use of multi-colored bulbs? That’s easy. Not a chance.

We had to make another crucial choice last week; whether or not our annual Christmas card will include a photo of our youngest son who, technically at least, is still living here. I say technically, because, while he does still have a bedroom here at home, for all intents and purposes he has lived on campus at his school in San Diego for probably 98% of the past year. Last summer he worked full time and lived on campus and only was home for a week or two at most.

Even so, we couldn’t help but wonder if he’d feel left out if we didn’t include him in this year’s card? Even worse, what if the photo of my wife and I did include our two new dogs – no kids (at least of the human kind), just dogs. Would our son’s feelings be hurt? Would he feel displaced by the new hounds in our home? We’ll soon find out, as the card we chose after much deliberation and handwringing does indeed show just my wife and I and both dogs. Gulp.

In our defense, however, our youngest son simply hasn’t been home enough this year even for me to get a photo of the three of us together. So there.

Debating over our Christmas cards brought up yet another choice that had to be made. Namely, should we include a dreaded “Christmas letter” with our cards this year, or do we give everyone on our list a break? The often-maligned practice of writing these things would make a good subject for an entire column, but again, not today.

Spoiler alert: If you’re on our Christmas card list this will ruin the surprise, but we did finally decide to send a letter along with our photo card this year – in part because so much has happened with our family since last Christmas and even more will be happening in the coming year.

We also chose to include a letter because it solves the problem of not including our kids in the photo on the card itself. The letter that will soon be mailed with our cards has interesting updates (hopefully) about each of four of our adult kids and their respective spouses, families and/or significant others – complete with photos of everyone involved, even the dogs. Problem solved.

Now that that choice has been made, our decision-making is by no means over. We still need to come to an agreement as to how many of our legendary Chase family Christmas cookies will be cut out, baked and overly-decorated this season. My wife would be happy with a single batch of approximately three dozen cookies. I’m leaning more towards two or three times that amount. After all, our kids may not live under our roof any longer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t come back to eat everything in sight.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Getting the LED Out At Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like … uh, Vegas? Am I the only one who cringes at the glaring, glowing sight of all the new LED-type Christmas lights on houses throughout the neighborhood? They may be more energy efficient (or to put it in the mantra of the moment, “green”), but they certainly aren’t as cozy and Christmas-like as the old school incandescent ‘C-9’ lamps.

For my tastes, LED (which stands for “light emitting diode” in case you care and please don’t ask me where diodes come from) Christmas lights are as warm and cheery as the rotating blue beacon on top of a police cruiser. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that if you look at LED lights long enough they’ll blow out every rod and cone in your eyeballs.

Now, I’ve heard the arguments promoting LED lights as being longer lasting, energy-saving alternatives to the old, glass-blown, incandescent bulbs. I’ve read that the glary LEDs use only 15% of the energy of a standard bulb and put out more light, there’s no filament or glass to break, they don’t get dangerously hot and blah-de-blah, blah, blah. Or rather, bah humbug. You might as well remake A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge played by Justin Bieber instead of George C. Scott. Puh-lease.

It’s Christmas time, people. A sacred time of excess and extravagance. I want to see my electric meter spin like a Frisbee on crack when I flip the switch on my outside lights. I want Edison shareholders to send me a handwritten, tear-stained note of thanks at the end of their fiscal year.  

Sorry, but I insist that my Christmas lights be a warm and cheery red, blue, orange, white, green – not environmentally sanctioned, Sierra Club-approved “green.” I want mine made from glass so they shatter when I drop them on the ground or step on them on the lawn as I’m trying to figure out how a string that was carefully and neatly stored away in January mysteriously became a tangled Gordian knot of green wire and broken glass while sitting undisturbed in a storage container in my attic for eleven months.

My wife and I love to walk various neighborhoods in the early evening and enjoy seeing how individual homes are decorated for the various holidays. One La Canada neighborhood that we frequent is a microcosm of trends – both old and new – in lighting technology, with many homes decked in tasteful rows of cozy and inviting traditional C9 lights and their next-door or across-the-street neighbors’ homes bedazzled with newer LED laser-like light shows. (I’ve considered donning my Maui Jim’s as I pass by these homes.)  

For me, it’s the difference between listening to White Christmas or Let It Snow sung by Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls or Burl Ives as opposed to hearing these venerable classics “interpreted” by Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne or Ceelo Green. It’s just not the same experience, if you get my (snow) drift.

Maybe I have this thing about old school lights because they nearly killed me in my youth while stringing lights at my parent’s house. Turning on the lights to see if any needed replacing, I unscrewed one that wasn’t working, saw that the metal contact at the bottom of the socket was not touching the base of the bulb, and – forgetting that the power was still on – stuck my index finger into the socket to bend the contact up. Dear holy mother of Donder and Blizten. I had no idea I could fly. When I came to I was laying on the lawn about 15 feet from the ladder with the smell of singed hair in the air. I’ve felt this odd, tingly connection with Christmas lights ever since.

Anyway, now that I’ve thoroughly positioned myself as a lighting snob, I’ll shut up -- for this week at least. Besides, I have to find a ladder and go replace some burned out bulbs on my roof. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published Thursday, 12.15.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

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