There are signs of Christmas all around and the ones we may enjoy most of all are the lights people decorate their house with. We are not a gifted family in that regard, but many years ago my wife decided we needed lights, after all there are all sorts of bushes in front of our house we could string them on.
So my son, Christian, and I were home those thirty some odd years ago and I decided my wife was right and we needed to put up Christmas decorations. My wife and I, mainly because of her, have always been a little bit modest when it came to Christmas, but we had talked about it and she was at work and I had the bug to decorate. My son was excited about it too so we go shopping. The main thing I buy was lights. I decided we could light up the house and just put a lot of lights up, on the shrubs and the trees, own the sidewalk and stuff like that. I was excited and didn’t mind spending quite a bit of money as we went to buy a lot of lights.
By the time my wife got home that day we had a bunch of them out and it was apparent what we were doing. I had been on the edge of the house putting them up there, putting them around the door frames, putting them around windows and everywhere I could think of you could put lights. Now, I had bunch running out in the front yard. I was going to throw them up in the trees and stuff but that became a little too much for me. So, I was ready to flick the switch and when I turned the lights on, they didn’t come on. They were connected in about five different places – lots of lights. So, we redid it again and turned it on again and again no lights came on. I kept trying and kept trying and it’s getting dark at night and we still didn’t have the lights on. Well, if you know me, you know it doesn’t take a whole lot to frustrate me, so I started ripping them down. I would take one section down and try it again but they still wouldn’t come on so I’d take another section down and it still wouldn’t come on and so it went.
I finally got so upset I finally took all the lights and wadded all the lights up and threw them out in the yard. I went in the house – mad – upset. My son comes in about ten minutes later and says, “Dad, I finally got the lights on!” Sure enough, when I go to the door there is a big wad of cords with light bulbs lying out in the yard and they are lit. They even looked pretty nice! We did manage to take one string of lights and laid them down one side of the sidewalk, crossed to the other side and back and forth.
The next day on the radio I’m bragging to people that I’ve accomplished this great feat with the lights and that they need to come by and look at them. Whether or not very many did I don’t know, but my good friend George Hine had his T-Bird full of people and they came to see them. He even got out and wanted to know what that design down the sidewalk was or what it was supposed to be. Of course I had no answer because they were just “there” as the only strand not in the wad of other lights. Three or four others I know of came to see them. I did have some nice lights! People volunteered to spread them out and I said, “Naw, just leave them there” so they stayed there, piled up in our yard. I got no award for it. By the way, I was never allowed to mess with Christmas ornaments again.
Until next time, so long everybody.
***
‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].