Oh my, as a child I loved Christmas Vacation thinking Chevy
Chase was the man! All those
lights on the house, my little heart was broken
when he went to plug in the lights and kaboom, the fuse blew and the fire
hazard of the county only fired up for a second. I wondered why our home never
even looked remotely like that! So I was
determined, when I grew up, my home would be a replica of his. That desire lasted
very shortly, about the time I decided a rockin’ Christmas had more to do with
other things than lighting up!
The first house I moved into I was pregnant with my second baby
on the way. I was twenty and already had a two year old child, Mike. My baby,
or rather one to come shortly was due at Christmas. The name I had picked out was Christopher, so
sure it would be a boy born on the 25th of December. We were moving to Northern Kentucky from
Cincinnati, Ohio to our dream starter home, a bi-level house spending every
last penny we had and borrowing enough to make a down payment. The neighborhood was small in comparison to
many nearby and everyone appeared to know each other there so we assumed we
would fit right in.
Our real estate agent failed to inform us our community was
in the news practically every Christmas. Yes, we had landed in the Christmas Street
of the city and county! It might have been nice to know so we could have
budgeted for this. So, here we are,
first new home, struggling just to buy lawn hose, lawn mower, curtains, curtain
rods, etc. thus Christmas lights and elaborate decorations for the outside of
the house was low on the priority list.
Little did we know we were going to be targeted by the
neighbors and fodder for gossip. It began getting filtered back to us by the
very few that spoke to us. We were
seeing neighbors working diligently outside mounting things on their homes,
stringing lights for hours, items appearing in their yard but I didn’t pay a
great deal of attention. I had a small child I was running after and a painful
back from a baby in an odd position in my belly.
One night as we are sitting in our family room, we realize
it is lit up in our house like a Christmas tree even though ours isn’t up yet.
Approaching the window my husband yells at me to come look. Damn if the entire
street isn’t loaded with more lights than Wally World has in inventory during
the entire holiday season! And the creatures on the lawn and on the roof tops
are too numerous to count. There were baby Jesus’s that had multiplied like
rabbits as well as North Stars, snowmen and Rudolphs up to 3 feet above homes!
As we stepped outside our front door we were met with another
shocker, a sign hung across the entire street. It hung from one chimney to the
other chimney’s house two neighbors living directly across from each other. It
was made in big squares with each square containing letters and held together
by a chain above it. It read Happy New
Year with Christmas icon pictures painted in huge colors so that each box was
filled to cover the entire street with boxes. We later learned each huge square was made
water proof. The sign was lined with
lights so it was viewable at night quite well! Walking down the street we saw
the other side said, as you drove up the street, Merry Christmas.
The entire street was like walking down the Las Vegas strip,
as light as in the day, full of color and diversity of personality, except for
our bleak looking black house, looking like we belonged in the projects. I walked my wobbling fat bottom back up the
hill to my house, leaving my husband gaping with his mouth wide open behind. I
wanted to hide in the shadow of our house.
It wasn’t but a few nights later, I begun to hate those
neighbors. My son, Mike was a very light
sleeper who woke up when he heard the heater kick on at night. Well, to add to
the Christmas cheer, the neighbors blasted Christmas music for all the cars
that began hitting our street, stopping and walking it. There was young and
old. There were cars stopping on all sides, blocking driveways so if you went
anywhere you couldn’t get back in your driveway until you found where the car
blocking your driveway was and the same was true when you wanted to leave. As I was having cravings, this made it rough
when I had ice cream or pickle cravings.
Imagine being pregnant under these circumstances.
The music played every night from 6 p.m. to midnight. So the only time I got a break from my dear
son was gone! He was either frequently
caught peeking out the window at the throes of people outside or whining about
having to listen to Santa is coming to Town every night at least 10 times,
asking me to make it stop! Our weak TV
couldn’t over blast it.
That Christmas, our first year in a home, I saw how
Christmas lights can become a competition as the neighbors constantly talked of
what they were adding the following year. When one wasn’t outdoors, the others
would talk about how they were going to outdo each other. I was glad to know that
no one was talking about how to outdo me!
I made sure, from that Christmas on, that was never a problem! Decorate
by never being the one everyone on the street hates.
As Christmas drew near, my spirit began to soar. I put my
Christmas candy in candy dishes being a candyahlic, requiring a lot less
working than climbing ladders stringing lights all over the dang house and
roof. When I came home from church one Saturday night, my husband and I noted
the dish was empty. As we looked at our
dog, Max, our golden retriever had a few pieces of red and green foil stuck on his
doggie collar. There was a chocolate thief in the house! And you know what the means? Someone is going to made piles of a chocolate
mess all over the floor!
So, thank God for the light works on the street because our
vet informed us for the next 3 hours we had to take turns walking him up and
down the street. This drudgery was to be
done until he either vomited it up or pooped it out. Max never did either but
enjoyed the lengthy walk. To this day, I
have no idea what happened. He never developed diarrhea but I, in my pregnancy
state, developed severe leg cramps as we lived on a steep hill. I
swear that dog was laughing the entire time manipulating us to get the longest
walk of his life out of us. Bah humbug,
I never bought those damn chocolate mint Christmas bells again!
Finally Christmas arrived and no baby. But I knew the days of hearing Christmas
music playing all hours of the night would be behind us so that was cause to
celebrate. Too often, the neighbors were forgetting to turn it off and we were
hearing the music in the wee a.m. hours now!
Bright and early Christmas morning, our doorbell rang. You
know how the early hour is, you are in your pajamas, your hair looks like you
were in a wild windstorm, and you look half-awake. My husband and I looked at each other. We both
were challenging each, who is going to address the door, and also wondering who
comes to the door that early on Christmas morning. So, for some reason, we both headed that way
as Max ran to the door. We knew one of us would have to hold him back as his
Merry Christmas would be a wet kiss regardless of the absence of mistletoe.
Opening the door, expecting one person, we were shocked. On
the other side was a group of what appeared carolers. But no, this congregation
was about 10 neighbors, all looking
wide awake and bushy tailed saying Merry
Christmas! They said as new neighbors
they wanted to give us a gift and held out a package for us to open. My husband
then gave me the honors. As I opened it thinking maybe I had somewhat misjudged
them as being way too much into Christmas.
With the first tear, I realized my gut is a good judge for staring me in
the face was a box of Christmas lights. My husband was slapped on the back with
a “Now there is no excuse for you next year to get your house all decked out
with lights, here’s your first strand to get your going Mike, Happy New Year
bud!” And with that, they walked
away. I smiled at him and said “Merry
Christmas Chevy!”
