The elves at our house are getting older.
Years ago, my husband, Harold, and I would hang a six-foot Christmas wreath in the window above our front door. The maneuver required an extension ladder and a good bit of arm and leg extension even then. The same shaky gyrations were required to take the wreath down again, and while the wreath was beautiful to see, the hanging process began to look more and more like a precursor to a trip to the emergency room. So, when the wreath began to look tired, I retired it and set out to find a less worrisome way to display our Christmas spirit.
It was the same story with the outdoor lights. We never went Clark Griswold crazy, but there was a time when we strung lights up and down a giant fir tree in our front yard. It was only a medium-sized ladder production. Harold climbed and I steadied and everything went fine until we decided that even a medium-sized fall could land us in traction and, even if it was only medium-sized traction, there would be nothing festive about that.
This year, the lights will be tucked into the front shrubs, an activity that does not require a ladder at all. Our light-up plastic snowman will not be perched precariously on the roof a la the Kranks, but will take his place on the back porch, where he can smile at us through the kitchen window. We’ll hang pre-lit garland around the front door and bows on the coach lamps that I can reach from the top step. Our Charlie Brown display will be positioned in the yard out front, spotlighted by a single extension cord deftly placed to preclude any tripping. (Whew!)
There will be no mistletoe hung from our entry chandelier, no 10-foot tree by the staircase, just our traditional seven-footer in the family room that I can tinsel with a self-grounding step stool. The angel will be a bit of a tiptoe stretch, but I’m guessing that if I opted to put the angel at eye level later on, it would be beautiful, too, just in a shorter sort of way.
This half-mast decorating is fine because most of my family is short anyway. Sure, we added a six-foot son-in-law a few years back, but he knew about our height challenges when he signed on.
Actually, when available, both son-in-laws have become an integral part of the holiday decorating process. (Again, it was implied in the initial contract.) While we’ve eliminated most of the ladders, there are still a lot of heavy ornament boxes to contend with. One of these years, I’ll get smart, stack them in one corner of the living room and build a closet around them, but for now they have to be hauled down from the attic one by one. Left on my own, I can manage it, slide the big tree box down the stairs and sensibly portion out the others (divide and conquer; lift with your legs) but when son-in-law help is available, I take it, promising wassail and cocktail smokies when the job is finished.
Step stool decorating: It’s an idea whose time has come, at least at my house, where the stockings will be hung by the chimney with care … because I can reach that. Tabletops? Yes. Up on the housetops? No.
I enjoy decking the halls. I just like to deck them from a safe elevation. Christmas without urgent care co-pays, free of a full-body cast, seems pretty holly-jolly to me.
