Christmas is Over?

The other day I had bad news.  The Christmas lights adorning my house appeared to have died.  They'd been glowing brightly only a few minutes before, but now they were out.  I ran a checklist to narrow down the problem, concluding the line itself wasn't working.  I was not happy.

This wasn't a string of new 'cheap' lights which have become the 'go to' for most families; mass produced from overseas, LED, good for maybe a year or two before they needed to be replaced.  These were old school lights, or as they're called today, vintage.  These lights looked like the ones which used to dance down Nicollet Mall during the Hollidazzle Parade.  This was a strand of lights my father had hung on his house when I was a kid, and they'd lasted at least 50 years.  My mother thought they were purchased in the late 1960's.

When my father gave me the lights back around 2008, you could tell they were different.  As opposed to a flimsy modern strand, these had sturdiness and reliability.  They were made with an electrical line similar to my extension cords and the plugs were heartier than some of the light fixtures in my house.  I swear there were bulbs on the line which were either original or were first generation replacements. The cord even had a fuse box on it.  When they were lit, it was prime Christmas beauty; American made!

But now they were not working.  

It did not help this was on the 26th.  Christmas from certain angles, a holiday we'd been hearing about for the last 2 months, did what it has done for the last 10 years, almost immediately beginning to disappear the minute we get passed noon on Christmas Day.  When I was a kid, the real Christmas season began in earnest on the 10th or so of December.  Sure there was Black Friday shopping, but there was always a gap between the end of Thanksgiving weekend and the real beginning of Christmas.  Christmas as a holiday itself began on Christmas Eve and went past New Years.  Christmas Day was at the beginning of the holiday, not the last gasp.  

The washing of our hands of Christmas on Christmas Day is not hard to understand.  Some people had been listening to Christmas music since November 1st.  It's not a surprise the radio stations who switch to all Christmas in November are back to regular programming by the end of the day on the 25th.  Not that long ago, Christmas music seemed to get played on radio stations well into the New Year's week.

When I was a kid, I remember many Christmas movies airing on TV in the days AFTER Christmas.  Today, no one seems to want to watch a holiday movie after Santa's visit.  Many of the stores and malls are quickly removing their decorations and displays on the 25th as they know people are burned out after two months of non-stop marketing.

And even some of my neighbors are on a calendar which has far less to do with the Christian faith and far more to do with consumer cycles.  They have their Christmas trees out on the curb early in the morning on the 26th, an unwanted carcass waiting to be scrapped.

Now my reliable strand of lights burning out seemed to be sending me a sign, telling me it was time to jettison the holiday; my standards of a Christmas lasting longer than the 25th unmaintainable in this day and age.

That Christmas strand of lights represented far more than just the season for me.  It was a reminder of how we used to make products in America, built to last!  Today, corporate executives, many of them who eagerly shipped their manufacturing overseas, are more concerned over trimming costs as opposed to making a reliable product.  

The lights also remind me of my father, who passed away earlier this year.  I was hoping to keep his family tradition going for a few more years.  Those lights represented my youth, the splendor and joy I had as a kid, excited for Christmas to come.  It represented my father's smile as he watched my face light up.

Many of my neighbors have already turned off their Christmas lights.  Two took advantage of the warmer temperatures to get them down completely.  Was Christmas really over?  Not for me.  I'm not ready for Christmas to end quite yet.  Since I hold off on Christmas music until mid December, I still enjoy the sounds of the season in the days after Christmas.  Our inside tree will be up until after the new year has been welcomed.  I'll still watch holiday movies, and I'll take a few more peeks the Christmas cards we received. 

The only hope for the light strand was the fuses.  I got up on a ladder, pried open the fuse case on the male plug, and pulled them out.  They were ancient themselves, from a day and age before big box hardware stores.  They were from a time where some guy named Earl would look at your fuse, then go over to a wall of shelves which looked un-navigable, and find exactly what you needed in two seconds.  I went to the smallest hardware store I could find, locally owned.  The 'child' working started sweating when I said I needed to find a fuse.  Thankfully he called a more experienced clerk who eventually figured out there was a match for my fuses in the automotive section. 

With a lot of trepidation, I climbed the ladder and carefully inserted the new fuses into the line.  I held my breath as I plugged the line back in...

I smiled.  Christmas is still going strong in my corner of Minnesota.