My dad loved Christmas. His enthusiasm and excitement for the holiday rivaled that of any six-year-old hopped up high on Mountain Dew. When I was a kid in my small hometown, most people didn’t decorate for the holidays until at least the end of November. There was small town decorum about decorating for the holidays. The decorations were to appear no sooner than the end of November and were to be taken down no later than the second week of January.
My dad started chomping at the holiday decorations bit by mid-October. Because we lived in a cold, unpredictable climate, he used the excuse of a “good weather” day to festoon the house with lights and decorations. So what if it was only mid-November? If my mother chastised him for going against the small town decorum and rushing the season, he’d come back at her with the rationalization that a storm could blow through any day, making the installation of outdoor Christmas decorations difficult and unsafe, if not impossible. He was right. You wanted those holiday lights in place before the real snow hit. And, giving my mother The Look, he’d add, “we wouldn’t want to be without lights and decorations this holiday, would we? The kids would be so disappointed.”
The kids. Yeah. Sure. Blame the kids. Sometimes I suspect the reason my dad wanted to have children was so that he’d have an excuse for toys, fireworks, and holiday decorations. Sure, thanks to my dad we enjoyed all that and more, but he was right there in on the fun, too. He shared the experiences with us and that was great. But I’m pretty sure his motivations weren’t entirely selfless.
He planned a different outdoor display every year. Adding, editing, and re-inventing the holiday decorations was an annual reason d’etré for him. By the time my mother “allowed” him to put up decorations, he had a master plan with the placement of every bulb, circuit junction, timer, every wreath, bough, angel, and Santa committed to memory. My mother managed the holiday concerts, parties, school plays, and Christmas Eve wardrobes. She did the baking, the cooking, and much of the indoor decorating. But the outdoor displays were my dad’s jurisdiction. It was his point of pride. His holiday greeting to the neighborhood. The showcase for his adoration of the Christ child. A showcase for his prowess with colored lights and questionable electrical wiring modifications.
My dad had holiday lights dating back to my parents’ first Christmas together. They were hand-me-down lights from an aunt and uncle. The lights were already old when my parents started using them. Back in the olden days, holiday lights were rudimentarily designed. If one bulb burned out, the entire string went dark, which means you had to find the burned out bulb on a string of unlit lights. Finding the burned out bulb after the string went dark meant taking out the bulbs and putting in a new bulb. One bulb at a time. When the entire string lit up, you knew you found The Bad Bulb.
Some kids have the holiday tradition of Easter egg hunts. Other kids enjoy the holiday tradition of finding treats hidden each day on an Advent calendar. We had the fun tradition of Finding the Bad Bulb. Finding the Bad Bulb day was an annual two-day event (or longer) that officially marked the start of the holiday season.
My dad usually tested a string of lights for illumination prior to adhering them to the house or trees.
But not always.
Sometimes he’d forget which strings he tested and figured they were all okay anyway, only to discover a bad string—a burned out bulb—after the entire display was in place. Back then, you didn’t just go out and buy a new string of lights. You bought replacement bulbs. Some people stockpile emergency items like spare fuses, screws, bolts, bandages, tape … my dad was never without a healthy stash of spare holiday light bulbs.
