Out of the Frying Pan

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We kept going around the dogwood tree, hanging the strings of popcorn and then the seedcobs. Grandpa filled the birdfeeder and told Lenny to bring the ladder up on the front porch to hang the garland and wreaths. Grandpa went into the house for a moment and was smiling when he came back out with two shopping bags.

“This is going to be a first, boys.”

We all went over to look. Inside the bag were Christmas lights, all different colors. The box they came in said that if one light went out, the others stay lit, a new innovation at that time. The wires were green plastic stuff, not like the waxed cloth wires of the old sets. The bulbs were the same size, but not as pointy. I also noticed that the red lights on these strands even looked like red. On the old strings they looked more orange.

Grandpa went back into the house and came right back out with a hammer and finish nails along with a pair of pliers. Lenny and Lanny went to get the big ladder for this job. There was no outdoor electrical plug, so Grandpa replaced the bulb in the porch light with a screw-in plug socket. With a small extension cord, the Christmas lights could be plugged in there. This meant that with a flip of the switch inside, the lights could be turned on and off without plugging or unplugging.

Lenny and Lanny came back with an extension ladder, and Lanny climbed up while Lenny held it steady. I was the keeper of the lights, making sure they didn’t snag. They started in the middle and worked their way out to each end of the porch. Tapping in each nail, they used the pliers to bend the nails into hooks. Each light socket had its own clip for the nail to hold it in place. Once the lights were hung, Grandpa reached inside the door and flipped the switch. It was hard to tell, but it looked like they all came on. We would just have to wait until dark to know for sure. Lenny and Lanny put the ladders away, then came back around the front. We all stood there looking at our handiwork for a moment.

“Fine job, boys,” Grandpa said. “It’s sure looking like Christmas time. Now let’s go in and start inside. At least it will be a little warmer for us in there.”

Inside, Grandpa pointed at another bag. “There’s more of those new lights.” We eagerly got the lights out and arranged them on the tree. Grandpa had these foil-like stars that went around each bulb socket, probably to keep the hot bulb from touching the tree.

Grandpa, knowing which wooden box contained what, opened the one with my grandmother’s favorite lights. Grandpa said they had bought these at Kresge’s 5&10 years ago. I was always fascinated by them myself. They’re called bubble lights and were large on the bottom which was usually painted red or green, and the top was a vial that contained different colored liquids. Once the lighted part at the base got hot, the bubbles would start. Sometimes, that is. Other times they needed a little help.

We’d have to turn them upside-down, then right side up again, then screw them back into the socket before they got cold and make sure they stood up as straight as possible with a little help from a bread wrapper twistie-tie. Most of the time that was all it took. Once they are working, they are pretty, but just watching them can make anyone sleepy.

The Christmas balls were all different shapes and sizes. Some of them had pictures of Santa and his sleigh. Some said “Merry Christmas” on the side with snowflakes in glitter. Some looked like pine cones, lanterns, or birds. I’m sure most all of them were hand-blown glass. We could tell some were really old by the way they had faded to almost transparent. Of course, some were handmade of wood, or were made of yarn, crocheted into pine cones.

The tree top was a star hammered out of light copper. On the back was a place where you could put a small candle that would shine through a pattern that was cut into the star. The bottom of the star could have been made from an old bed or chair spring. It screwed down on the top branch of the tree. Once the star was in place, we clipped one of the lights to the part where the candle was supposed to be.

Underneath the tree we placed cotton to look like snow, small mirrors to look like ice, little houses, a church, and a nativity set that Grandpa had carved. To the village we added Santa and his reindeer with sleigh, various small animals, little figurines, and small bristly green trees with wooden bottoms that stood up easily with a slight twist in the cotton.

With the tree finished, we went on to the windows. My grandma had these little gold-foil-over-cardboard-folded-fan-looking-things that when opened all the way made a star or snowflake. We used bobby-pins to hold them together and hung one in each window on the front of the house. There was a lace curtain that she had made that went over the door window, it had a snow scene with kids pulling a tree on a sled and a house in the background. It was so beautifully detailed that I was amazed by that curtain.

Grandpa had brought in pine branches and placed them on the mantle and fireplace. He left the room and headed for the kitchen. When he returned, he said, “I knew there was something missing.”

He held out another bag. Reaching inside, he pulled out a box of candy canes. We each took four and taking turns, hung them on the tree. Reaching into the bag again, Grandpa pulled out grocer’s mix, ribbon candy, soft mint sticks, and chocolate stars. He told Lenny and me to go and get the candy dishes. We were as careful as careful could be because we knew some of those candy dishes belonged to our great-grandmother. The way my grandfather looked at it was, “If you have it, then use it,” regardless of its age or value.

We placed the candy in their rightful places. Taking a glance around the room just to see if anything was missed, Grandpa said with a smile, “Everything looks wonderful and is ready for tomorrow, Christmas Eve.”