SPREADING CHRISTMAS CHEER

I suppose it's not a good sign when, toward the end of Christmas decorating, my wife turned to me and said, "I think next year we're just going to leave the house for a while when you put up decorations."

I am not quite positive, but I think my wife may have been hinting that I was not exactly in the Christmas spirit last Sunday, when I invested 56 hours spreading ho-ho-holiday joy to my neighbors and an extra couple of zeros on the blood pressure read-out.

I thought this year was going to be easier. Last year, I started from scratch. My family was away for the weekend, and I took on the task by myself. I put permanent clips up that would, supposedly, make this year's light journey an easy one. Last year was no walk in the park. Generally, I consider an activity a negative experience if I get stuck on the roof and have to wait until a neighbor comes out of his home to help me.

It started out fine enough. I had packed everything in plastic bins, and maintained an orderly system of organization. I had even color coordinated the storage system. Christmas was in the red and green bins, while Halloween was in the orange and black bins. Happy holidays to all of my fellow organizationally obsessed brethren!

In a matter of minutes, the red and green bins were sitting on the porch, awaiting my magic touch. My wife was in charge of lights on the bushes, as well as youngun' wranglin' (a term my wife says gives quite the wrong impression of the manner in which we watch our children; I think she is afraid people will think we use lassoes and such, which practically never happens).

My wife was put on ground light detail because, when I do it, the lights tend to look like a multi-car pile-up at night. There is no order, and some areas have huge clumps of lights all together. It as though a chimpanzee got hold of a Lite Brite. We use those net lights, which are supposed to make your lights look neat and even and perfect, but I somehow manage to mess that up.

While she and my daughter were going to tend to that (sad that a 4-year-old is first-choice for a helper over a 32-year-old), I would put the rope lights along the roofline. As I said earlier, this would be easy, because the clips were in place. Apparently, in my haste to slap the "easy" tag on it, I forgot the fact that the roofline stands way higher than necessary above the ground.

And then the fun began. With the extension ladder stretched out to its maximum height, I began to ascend to the top, ready to clip in the oh-so-easy lights. About halfway up, as the ladder began its steady back and forth rocking, wife decided she would come hold the ladder. And then my daughter decided she would help.

Now, why I decided that this was the time to start parenting is beyond me, but wobbling stories up seemed the perfect place to start saying, "Allie, get away from the ladder!"

Allie told me that she was helping by holding the ladder. At that point, I directed my attention to my wife. "Get Allie away from the ladder. If I fall, I don't want to fall on her."

My wife looked up at me and, well, gave me one of her looks. The look said many things. It said, "Uh, how about not falling at all?" It said, "I don't want you falling on ME either." And it said, "I can keep the ladder steady or I can take her. Pick one, gambler."

Breaking her silence, she finally spoke actual words, "Allie. Move. Now." Allie has learned from her father. Allie moved. Then.

This went on for the better part of the afternoon, with me barking orders and directions and exuding general crankiness. Eventually, I got the lights up, although it was far from easy. Toward the end of the efforts, I realized that I was being rather temperamental and tried to remember that what the season is all about, and that putting up decorations with your family should be a fun and rewarding experience. It should be a time of fantastic memories. At that point, I vowed to focus on the positives and usher my bad mood away. It was important I took time to remember why we do this. That and I was about to get on the roof, and I am fairly sure my wife would have taken the ladder away.