Fa La La La La...

our one lonely string

This house is covered in lights, like lace.

...and shit.

The Neck, AKA Valhalla, is less decked out this holiday season. Fewer homes have gone Full Metal Saugus (I used to think that Somerville held the Over the Top Holiday Decorations title. I was wrong.)

It could be because the the Neck population's aging. A lot of the young’un's are now in high school and college. Without easily wowed kiddles around, maybe the parents aren’t so inspired to put on the big light shows.

Dunno.

The Amazing Bob and I generally just decorate indoors. We put up a lot of lights and they stay up ‘till spring if not year 'round. Why's that, you might be asking. Winter’s dark, man and we like the pretty colored lights, that's why!

Last December was an exception. We didn’t deck the halls. We didn't replace any of the crapped out bulbs. Just one lonely string of lights remains.

The Amazing Bob wasn’t feeling well at all last December. Cancer—two different kinds of lymphoma—was the eventual diagnosis. We pulled through. TAB’s in complete remission. YEA!

Ya know what this means? YES. It’s time to put up some damn lights! I’d bought a giant coil of them last year, thinking “Hey, I’ll get these up and it’ll cheer TAB (and me) a bit.” 

Great idea but that big-ass spool of potential brill color sat in a corner of our living room all winter. I just wasn’t able to manage the task on my own and forgot to ask for help. Christmas passed. New Years was over. Decorations around the neighborhood came down and I thought “BUT the pretty colors will be awesome all the same.” Yes, true but I never got them hung.

Where’s that mondo light spool now? Beats the fuck outta me. At some point I put them "away." We’ve a tiny little cottage. There’s only so many places that a colossal cord of Christmas lights could hide.

The plan for today is to find those babies. If they’re still MIA by mid day, I’ll hit the hardware store for more. And I’m gonna remember to ask Jen and Oni for help.