by Cathy
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| Obsessed with lights |
I wrote about how our car turn-signal headlight was randomly popping out of the front corner and literally hanging down low off the side of our car like the tongue of a parched dog on a hot summer day. Then I wrote about how we had to reinstall a new light fixture in our bedroom because a piece of the bulb broke off in the socket, and not even the old potato trick could remove it.
And now, the worst part about Christmas? You guessed it. I was dreading putting those lights on the tree. Then I had my mom, the Greek Martha Stewart, telling me that she read somewhere (probably in Martha Stewart's Living) that for a seven-foot tree, you need 800 lights. 800!! But my mom's tree always looks amazing so I decided to follow that advice and made sure I had a total of eight strings of 100 mini lights a piece, connected them all together before I started, plugged them in - and then proceeded to light the tree. Backwards. From the bottom up. And you know what? For the first time ever, it was a breeze! I was able to avoid black holes and light clusters alike. And my tree, too, looked like Martha Stewart rigged it up.
Now, it seems this obsession with lights has filtered down to my kids in a different way. Any time of day or night, morning, afternoon or evening, the lights get flipped on for everything in our house. Walking through the hall to get to the living room? Lights on. (This turns on eight lights down the length of our hallway, lighting it up like an airport runway.) In the living room? Even now with the Christmas tree lights on, the twinkling lights around our windows on and the lights entwined around the garland running across my mantle on, they turn the room lights on. Going to the bathroom? In order to get to their preferred bathroom they walk through their bedroom, turn on that light, then the bathroom light. Their room closet light is on 24/7. And the kitchen? Might as well be a 24-hour diner.
Maybe I'm turning into my parents. Just like they did, I am always on my kids' backs about turning off the lights in the house. (It's not just a money saving tactic anymore, it's also an energy saving measure as well.) In fact, I've gotten so tired of saying it that now, I just go ahead and turn them off myself. The other day, with every gift Bella wrapped for her friends, she would walk to the living room to put it under the tree and every time she would flip on the hallway/runway lights and then the lights in the living room - which remember - is already ablaze with twinkling Christmas lights. This must have happened about seven times - once every five minutes. She'd turn them on. I would turn them off. On. Off. On. Off. If someone was watching our house from the street, it would look we were hosting the Oscars right there in our little condo - a paparazzi light show extravaganza!
Perhaps one day when my kids have kids - or when electricity has to be rationed out because of the large carbon footprint we are leaving now - they will recall my words, and tell their kids to turn off the lights. Or perhaps they'll be so frustrated with installing light fixtures due to broken off bulbs or decorating Christmas trees, wreaths and windows, that they will willingly keep them turned off.
