"Mr. Safety" we call him

If you want to know the nitty gritty truth, I'm afraid this little shot captures the real spirit of Christmas in my home. A bit precarious. Pushing the limits just a tidge. A touch slap-dash.

We went out into the mountains to cut a Christmas tree on Saturday. Into the woods we trooped, with lovely friends who are always much more prepared than we are. They're the responsible team who bring along things like saws. They're like that. They think ahead.

This year, however, we did a little spot of our own thinking ahead. We bought not one, but two Christmas tree tags. Why? Because every year we pick out a tree that looks nice and bushy out there in the forest and snow, but when we plunk it into our house it turns out to be a miserably transparent little twiglet. Very sad. So this year we cut two. And then, follow me closely here, we stuck them together. Indeed. I was quite proud of that inspired idea.

The above is a shot of Ben working on weaving together the top branches - obviously in a very safety conscious fashion. After he finished wiring the trunks together, he went to put on the lights - which was when we discovered that our lights from years gone by had turned up their tails and died.

So we piled the fam into the car and headed out to grab some new lights. That's when the trouble began. Some of the children began lobbying for colored lights. Ben is a serious colored lights believer, and I am just as firmly in favor of white. We stood there in the Riteaid aisle, debating the point. We tried voting, and ended in a straight up tie. That's when Ben pulled out a trick from back in our dating days, that I had forgotten all about, which he calls, "ice cream bowling." I think he invented it, and I have never been a fan.

Here's the set up, and it originated in Ben's life as a way to decide on which flavor of ice cream to buy. When you stall out in a store with differing opinions about what to purchase, or simply can't make up your mind, this is his simple and incredibly inelegant solution. You set up a little goal post on the floor with some nearby merchandise - like dishsoap or something. Then you establish the fault line, and you bowl the ice cream down the aisle. The person lobbying for rocky road bowls it down the way, and the pink sherbet fan bowls in similar fashion. If your icecream sails past the dishsoap, you're disqualified. Whoever comes closest to the goal line wins.

He used to make me do this when we were dating, and I was always ready to die of shame. I'm not the sort of person to fling ice cream in stores, and I'm pretty sure that fact was the entire thrill of it for Ben - making me get all stressed out and uncomfortable.

Anyhow, back to the Christmas light controversy. There we stood in the aisle, and suddenly this uncouth tradition came back to Ben. There was nothing I could do. We were sort of near the pharmacy, so he set up a couple bottles of mineral oil on the floor. Then he made me bowl for it. Seriously. In front of my children who have now learned this very dreadful practice. They of course loved it. Ben loved it. I was mortified. And yet, I really, really, really didn't want colored lights. So I bowled.

And lost.

Colored lights it is. Next year I'm just going out myself and quietly buying white lights while no one notices.