Timber!
>> Sunday, December 5, 2010
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...at least outside! After 14 years of marriage, The Man and I actually have put up exterior Christmas lights! Man, was I stoked. I love Christmas lights. The soft glow is beautiful, festive, calming. Well, usually it’s calming. I had to tone our lights down. The blinking pattern was so spastic I felt like I was looking into a strobe light. Add to this the fact that Monkey Boy can have seizures induced by flickering lights, and changing the pattern to a slow fade was a no-brainer.
I put the Christmas tree up that day, too. More lights! We turned off the ceiling light in the living room and watched TV by the glow of the tree. OK, not exactly a Norman Rockwell moment, but it worked for us.
The next day, I put the tree up again. And again. And again.
Monkey Boy had discovered how to topple a tree, no axe required. You’d have thought he was a lumberjack, he felled it so easily.
Thankfully, none of the ornaments were on the tree yet, so the damage was minimal. I just packed that sucker up and took it back to the garage. So much for trimming the tree photos for the scrapbook this year.
I’m thinking maybe I’ll make a tree out of green butcher paper and tape it to the ceiling. If I stick it in the center of the ceiling, it’ll take Monkey Boy a bit longer to figure out how to get it down. He does climb doorjambs, but as of yet he hasn’t sprouted suction cups from his feet, so I think the makeshift tree will be safe in the middle of the ceiling—at least for awhile. I’m hoping it’ll last until December 26th, anyway.
On second thought, maybe I’d be better off just draping some tinsel from the ceiling fan. Less work. Added bonus—on New Year’s Eve, I can just turn the fan on and voila! Instant confetti.
4 comments:
We had a tall baby gate around our Christmas tree for several years. Guessing Monkey boy is more persistent than that.
SO wanted to do outside lights, but we don't have an outlet on the front of the house. Oh well.
My parents have a knack for picking a Christmas tree that will not stand up straight. So Mom, with her "never give up" attitude came up with a solution. She has a few plants hanging from ceiling hooks in the living room where the tree goes. She just moved one of those plants and put the tree up under the vacant hook. Then with fishing line, she tied the top of the tree and hooked it onto the hook! Since you can't really "see" the fishing line, it worked like a charm!
Good luck with Monkey Boy. Let's hope that in a few years, the tree has lost it's magnetism.
Joanne--unfortunately, Monkey Boy outgrew the baby gate phase some time ago. He can shimmy up walls, so anything on the ground is no obstacle for him.
Do you have a porch light? I bought an adapter for my porch light. You take out the bulb, put in the adapter, and plug your lights in to the adapter. I hope that will work for you!
Teresa, I like your mom's style!
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