Lights? Humbug!

Really. I hate the Christmas lights. It's not just the untangling -- that's pretty much under control with some careful coiling. It's that after all the work, they still never look like I intend them to. Maybe that's why I wait until, say, today to do them. The lights have been on the tree, for a week, but the house was looking kinda bare (in fact, our little neighborhood seems a little less Electric Yule-y than in past years). It's enough to make me get one of those giant inflatable snow globes. I hate tacky, yet I want tacky. Must. Defeat. Tacky. Self!

So, some lights are up. Some are headed for the trash. I want to feel guilty about the waste, especially knowing someone in Malaysia earned about a quarter for putting the whole thing together so it would only cost me $9.99 at the Target. But when a string goes, out they go -- I don't have hours to spend figuring out which little micro-light is causing the problem. And I hate that string, anyway. Never looked the way it does on other people's houses.

I was thinking of making the obligatory Griswold reference, and it reminded me of what a crisp piece of writing the original "Christmas '59" story was when it appeared in National Lampoon. It was so laugh-out-loud funny. And now I couldn't be happier to tell you that it's available on the web, right here. And, so is the original "Vacation '58" story. I love the web!