Holiday Helpers Headquarters #10

Hang lights!!

Okay our lights weren't quite this awesome but I forgot my camera cord ...

I'll post pics of the house later.

So this is a true story.  Saturday, I went with my sister to look at Christmas lights with my niece Kaelyn.  Which then lead to my sister convincing me that I should help her hang Christmas lights on her house.  She told me that the hooks were already there from the previous year - sounded easy enough.  

So we got back and I helped put Kaelyn to bed, read her a bedtime story and then go out to the garage to get started.  I walk in and my sister has some of the lights untangled.  However there is one strand that doesn't work and is no joke in a ball like this ... 

okay so it wasn't that big - but it was still a mess.  So she tells me that we don't have to use that strand and that I can just use the tangle free strands.  So I start on the side of the house get around the corner and have to start over for fear of not making it to the end of the front of the house.  Start over ... get all the way around the front of the house minus like a foot and we are out of working lights.  So now what?  We start trying to fix the broken tangled strand.  

Meanwhile, I have only almost fell off the ladder about 100 times.  Debra is making fun of me ... you are only 2 feet off the ground ... we are cracking up.  At this point I think I need a tetnis shot for all the rusty nails (yeah not "clips") that are poking me sticking out of the roof.  

While we were hunting for replacement bulbs the neighbor next door turns off their lights - we are then cracking up saying that the neighbor was afraid we'd steal a few of theirs so they beat us to the punch by unplugging them so we wouldn't know which bulbs worked.  Honestly, it was probably due to the fact that it was 10:30 pm by now.  Oh yeah we started at 8:30 and Debra told me it wouldn't take longer than 30 mins to do.  We finally find a new replacement bulbs from the Christmas tree lights and get a little more than half the strand working.  

So we decide to take them all down (by "we" I mean "me" since I was doing all the work as Debra texted and took pics of me falling off the ladder) and start over using the 3/4 strand on the side of the house.  Finally, I make it to the end of the front of the house and then a good amount on the other side.  All in all ... it looked pretty good at the end.

Then Debra tells me that they have a Merry Christmas sign to put up in the window.  So after battling with that thing for another 15 - 20 mins.  We put it up in the window.  Debra goes outside ... looks at the sign from the road and says that we need to put it up higher.  She comes in and goes to pull up the blinds.  Which then come crashing down.  We again are cracking up.  I'm holding the million pound blinds while she is yelling ... I am going to pee my pants ... she takes off down the hallway yelling I'm peeing my pants.  Again, we are cracking up because she sounds just like my niece. So I spend about 30 mins trying to get the blinds back up.  While we (again I mean just me) are trying to put up the blinds I say that Santa needs to bring Debra a husband with some tools because she only has a hammer that she took from our parents' house so we don't even know if we can get the blinds back up without a screwdriver. I get one side in ... can't get the other side in.  Try starting with the other side ... same problem.  Debra has to call her friend's boyfriend to come over to help since he lives the closest.  He comes over ... pulls down a little hinge and places the blinds right in!!!  OMG!!!!   

Okay we get everything back up ... then we realize the Merry Christmas sign is crooked.  At this point, it's 11:30 p.m. - I have a 2 hour drive home - so we just say oh well.  I go to leave and shut the door ... Merry Christmas sign falls out of the window.  Debra comes out of the house cracking up - I've had enough ... she now has other help so I leave thinking in the morning I am going to get a call from her that the Christmas lights fell off the house.

I have no idea how Kaelyn didn't wake up at all through all of that.  I think the funniest thing we thought about afterwards was like ... I wonder if our parents had to go through all this craziness to make Christmas special for us.  We'd be sleeping in our beds and our parents are cracking up in the living room because they knocked over the tree or something crazy like that.  

I call Paul on my way home thinking by now he thinks I have run off and tell him about it and he says ... were you guys drinking?  Um NO totally sober which makes it even more hilarious.

So here's my recommendation ... even if you think hanging lights or decorating will be a hassle ... do it anyway.  The craziness is worth the memories.  Just don't get mad when things go wrong ... it's too funny anyways to get upset because it's totally like National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.  Also, while hanging lights at night and people are driving by ... Debra and I are cracking up because we're thinking there is some kid in the car saying ... look my those people are HANGING UP their lights!  (Because the lights were plugged in so we could use them to see where to hang them!)  When do you ever see people hanging up lights at night??  

Do you have any funny holiday decorating stories?