Fraters Libertas

Now Is The Time At Balsawood When We Decorate

Just a few short days ago we had a house full of, well, house stuff. You know the general clutter I'm talking about; the end table overloaded with six month old magazines, the coffee table straining under the weight of a years worth of photographs and several Sunday papers worth of unused coupons and the kitchen countertops covered with unread junk mail and unwanted catalogs. All of that changed Monday when the lovely Atomizerette took a day off from work and...set the snowmen free.

Clutter has been replaced by snowmen. We have snowmen with bells. We have snowmen that sing. We have snowmen that play the piano. We have snowmen that skate. We have snowmen, and their cuddly-cute snowwives and snowchildren, on every single available horizontal surface in our home...as well as most of the vertical ones. Our house has literally been overtaken by snowmen and, believe it or not, I am feeling strangely fine with it all.

Perhaps my acceptance of the snowpeoples' power grab inside the house has something to do with what I recently did to the exterior. Last year, I complained to the wife about the size of our exterior Christmas lights (insert lame sexual inneundo here). We had those little mini white things that look good on a fern or a potted plant but when applied to something as big as an entire house look rather pathetic. So I complained, and I whined, and I generally made an obnoxious annoyance of myself every single time I had the opportunity to. Apparently, it worked.

This year, I had the real deal to work with. She bought me the big husky sized bulbs...the ones that really scream "CHRISTMAS!" rather than meekly suggesting that the holiday season may soon be upon us. So I strung those babies up last weekend. I was so excited about displaying my new lights that I forgot about my tremendously incapacitating fear of heights long enough to climb up on the roof and line the eaves with four full strings of Christmas joy. We even bought the outdoor timer so the neighborhood would not have to endure even one single night without my illuminated homage to the birth of our Lord and Savior.

And then I plugged them in. Our home's proximity to the airport now concerns me greatly. I seriously fear the glow from these lights may actually disorient a pilot enough that we will soon be awakened by an errant 727 landing in our backyard. How bright can they be, you ask? Take a look for yourself.

Needless to say, any complaints about the number of snowmen scattered about the house will now fall on deaf ears...not to mention blind eyes.