Every year around this time my grandfather would head to the basement and pull out the cardboard boxes stuffed to the gunnels with Christmas decorations.
He'd test every strand of lights to see that they worked and would put aside every set that didn't for replacement bulbs he would pick up, hassle free, from the local hardware store.
He'd then go through the boxes of tree ornaments to see which ones had survived the year's storage. He would make a list of the fragile casualties that didn't come out of their eleven month slumber and, once again, it was no problem to head to a local store to find matching pieces.
Fast forward to the 21st century.
Now I'm grown with a family of my own. Where my Grandad was a little more understated with his Christmas decorating, I come a little more from the Clark Griswold school of festive lighting.
I'd like to be able to see my house from space.
I try to be understanding of my wife's wishes to keep my yearly lighting project a little low key, but I have been successful for the last 6 years in slipping a few extra pieces into the yard when she's not paying attention.
It had built to the point where I had constructed an elaborate lighted runway path for Santa in our driveway, colored floodlights, a series of twinkling candy canes around the perimeter of our large flower bed in the front yard, a labyrinth of rope lighting, an inflatable Santa in a helicopter, and a sound activated box that makes everything dance to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock. The front of our happy home is also lined with over 2000 gold LED Christmas lights.
Last year, we had the winter from hell. Record amounts of snow were dumped on our little hamlet starting on December 27th and there wasn't a time where there was less than two feet of the bastardly white stuff on the ground. When it all finally started to melt, I was able to survey the damage left by Old Man Winter.
All six of my floodlights had been crushed by the weight of the snow. My lighted runway had 3 of the 6 sections destroyed, 1/3 of my candy canes had been put through the wringer and Santa and his helicopter were permanently grounded. You would think it would be as simple as heading back to a store and repurchasing this stuff, right?
You would think wrong, dear reader.
You see, it appears that the Christmas decoration industry has grown in malice one hundred fold since the days of my Grandad. Each year they release new and wonderful items for your holiday displays, but apparently send them off to Siberia - never to be seen again - once the holiday is over. The following year, they bring out all new crap for you to spend your hard earned money on.
Unless you bought a whole bunch of extra matching stuff in the past, once something goes down for the count you're up that oft-referenced Feces Creek with no paddle to be found.
Case in point is my floodlights. The sockets and casings survived Jack Frost's fury, but the red and green bulbs were burst. Ridiculously thinking it was as simply as buying $10 replacement bulbs, I toddled off to Home Depot with my bank card in hand.
"Where can I find red and green flood lamp replacement bulbs?" I asked the slack-jawed attendant in the seasonal section.
"We ain't got any. We don't sell them no more. You gotta buy the whole kit for $22."
Eff.
"Are they hookin' up to anything else? If they are, they changed the hookups 2 years ago and they ain't compatible anymore. You have to replace your sets."
Double Eff.
"So there was a Santa Claus in a helicopter..."
"Discontinued."
Mother Effer.
I didn't dare ask about my precious twinkling candy canes.
A quick 10 minute stop that should have cost about $50 turned into 80 minutes and $282.
Tomorrow, I will take my new found spoils and try to reconstruct the suburban magic in my front yard that I built the last five years. My much lighter wallet is going to dampen my spirits just a bit, but I will also have a very eager three year old helping Daddy out for the first time - so that should balance things out.
Even after spending all that money, I'm still looking for one more item. A large, inflatable and illuminated Santa choking the shit out of a Home Depot employee would make a great new centerpiece for the front lawn.
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