The lights of the season continue to go on all over the metro. Of course, the Plaza did their deal on Thanksgiving night followed by the Mayor's Tree on Friday. We usually try to make it to the second event each year. This year the tree was beautiful, as always, plus they had some dancing water fountains and musical fireworks. Oleta Adams sang like a Christmas Angel. But, the main reason we attend each year has to do with the host, Bill Grigsby. It just wouldn't be the holidays without a Merry Christmas from Bill. He's our area's year-round holiday present. It was good to be out and about Friday evening, after getting our own decorations up over the previous two days. All went well for us in that regard... with the exception of the Christmas tree.

As I mentioned, due to allergies, we use a fake tree. (We're on our second one. Up until last year we still put the old one up, upstairs by a window, but it is so decrepit, now, even Charlie Brown would hold his nose...dogs would only snicker. This year, in honor of the old tree, we just took a pile of plastic green needles and spread them on the carpet.) Regardless, I still make everyone bundle up and sing carols as we march into the basement. After looking at lots of invisible trees, I say "Here it is! The perfect tree for our family!" Then, we drag it back up the stairs. I pretend to chop off the bottom to make it perfectly even. My wife and children have just about reached the end of their patience for this whole charade and, this year, the dog absolutely refused to wear the horse costume and pull me around the driveway in a wagon filled with hay.

All went well...at first. The older boys put the branches in the right spots and then spread them out to look relatively real. Now, before going any further, I should mention that we moved the furniture around over the summer. So, the place in the living room, where the tree usually would go was not feasible without moving everything back to the old configuration. When we had made this change it seemed the obvious and best place for the tree would be in what is meant to be an area for a little kitchen table. We have never used it for that purpose. Our kids do a lot of their fine dining standing in the kitchen and when we all want to sit together we do have a dining room table. So, for awhile we had a piano sitting in the nook. (I don't care who you are, the word "nook" is just plain wierd.) Then, we put a reading chair, there. As I mentioned, we figured it would be easy to move the chair and put up the tree right in that spot.

The idea has a lot going for it. It means you can see the tree through the front door and out the back windows. It allows plenty of room for the dog to get by without knocking every ornament from mid-tree down, onto the floor. It really is more centrally located than the living room location which allows you to see it from almost every vantage point. The only problem: the permanent light fixture in the ceiling! I had already removed a bunch of the chain-links and used a latch-thingy to put the fixture as far up and out of sight as possible. Still, after the tree was up, my eyes were automatically drawn to the light. Maybe it is because my wife and kids have always encouraged me to move toward the light if that option ever presented itself.

Even though the lights and ornaments on the tree looked great, the star on top was competing for attention with this big, hooded globe. My wife, being much more reasonable, said nobody would notice...we'd always leave the overhead light off and all eyes would be drawn to the tree. All eyes but mine. So, I took the hood and globe off. That was worse. Now it looked like we were going to be interrogating Humphrey Bogart about some bank job. I took the bulb out. Not good. My wife said to put just the globe back on and it "look like a giant snowflake!" Or, a very out of place light fixture ruining my Christmas tree. All the wires and the excess chain-link were still messily bunched up. I was up and down the ladder more often than a middle-age man sleeping in a bunk bed after attending a coffee-drinking festival. My language quickly turned from merry to menacing. By this time, all the kids and the dog had disappeared. Then, in a moment of inspiration, my wife grabbed some white, glittery garland and wrapped it around the cords and wires all the way down to the white globe. She actually took that ugly light and turned it into a decoration.

Now, when people visit we will just tell them "Oh, that? That's Planet Christmas circling the sunburst star on top of the tree. Yeah...we came up with it ourselves. Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray have both called to see if we'd let them use the design on their shows but we're thinking of keeping it all in the family. But, if you come back next week, we're having Bill Grigsby host an official lighting ceremony."