Christmas lights…

One thing about my father was… When he had it in his head he was going to do something… He REALLY did it… Like… “All out”..

Like his cars, for example.. They were always fully loaded with the latest and greatest features and he always chose the most spectacular color available. Always a conversation starter .. his cars were..

And then the time when he had left over green paint after painting the outside of our house… He decided to make some weird design on our front side walk…. by using a paint roller on a broomstick and making this psychedelic pattern of green on our front sidewalk slab. He got super creative with 2 different shades of green. I always hoped people did not look down onto the ground when they came over my house to visit me…

And then there were the Christmas lights..Ohhhh … The outdoor Christmas lights…… He put lights EVERYWHERE on the outside of our house. The pillars on our porch, the top edging of the porch, and the railings of our porch. We had a yard filled with bushes that surrounded our house. All the bushes were decorated.. All of them… With a lot of lights… The lights were flashy and bright. The house lit up pretty good.

The lights were never on a timer.. We used a light switch just inside our front door to turn the lights on for the night, then off before we went to bed. As it got closer to Christmas Day, my dad sometimes liked to leave them on all night. But, sometimes not…It all depended…   All done manually..

Dad was quite a character.. I loved him dearly.

This story I am about to tell takes place around Christmas time when I was about 13 years old.

I was asked to babysit. It was a family I babysat for quite often. They had 3 adorable kids. The parents were very nice.. But, their Dad wasn’t a huge fan of Christmas. I remember he commented that he couldn’t wait to get the Christmas tree out of his living room after Christmas. It was too big, messy and annoying.

Some people just aren’t into all the Christmas traditions. I get it… I mean…., other than that,… he was a happy guy. A great father..

They had a real nice house. They lived in a safe neighborhood… Things were good….

So, I babysat for that family one night around Christmas time… It was an uneventful night. The kids were good and I put them to bed. Typical, typical night of babysitting.

The dad of these 3 kids finally arrived home from wherever he was.. It was late..but not overly late.. Maybe 10pm or so.. ..

I lived less than a mile down the road. So, he quickly drove me home.

We were driving down the main road heading towards my house. I noticed that this particular street seemed to have a lot of homes decorated with outdoor lights for the holidays. It was actually really fun to see them all lit up and festive in the night….I felt happy looking at them.

The “Dad”  obviously noticed the lights, as well.( How could you NOT ?!)……Except, his feelings were quite the opposite of mine….and he let it be known ..

“I can’t stand all those flashy Christmas lights !!… It really makes it look like a bunch of Gypsys  live there. What the heck is wrong with people?!”…He said..

Oh my gosh… Not only did he dislike indoor Christmas trees, he hated the outdoor Christmas lights, too !!!!

You all know what was going through my mind at that very moment…!!!

“MY HOUSE !!!! Oh no !!!!! MY DAD and those darn lights !”

This phrase was replaying in my head over and over from the moment he said “Gypsys”…..

I started trying to send telepathic messages to my own dad. I was desperate.. (There were no cell phones on 1983 – I couldn’t text … Like you could these days ..)

This is what was going on inside my head……. “Dad, please turn off our lights, Dad, please turn off our lights, Dad, turn off those damn lights !!!..”

We lived just 3 houses to the right off of the main road I was just speaking of… So, the dad who was driving me home rounded the corner to my house,… taking a sharp right onto my street…He starts to approach my house and pulls to the right…

It was then that I realized .. that MY dad obviously did NOT get my telepathic messages…..

Because my house was still flashing and blinking all the lights …It looked like the house in “Christmas Vacation” movie.. It was blinding !!! It was more obnoxious than ever at that very moment. Like Las Vegas….

That was the most awkward moment, ever.

I pretty much grabbed the babysitting pay from the guys hand ..and I got out of his car .. And I didn’t look back.

He was embarrassed, I am sure.

It was so bad that I was embarrassed FOR him..

I just kind of had this tight lipped look on my face, held my breath, and marched right into my house. Like a soldier.

I walked in the door like a soldier ., turned stiffly to the right… , put my hand up to the wall, and I flicked that wall switch to the OFF position,….

Off went those lights ..

Then I sort of unheld my breath and “sighed”, a big, giant “sigh”. I relaxed and then I giggled….

and thought to myself …

“DADs “….

I shook my head .. back and forth.. as I walked upstairs to go to bed ..

Still giggling…