My new apprentice

Because I’ve been away every weekend this past month, my traditional “Clark Griswold” responsibilities have fallen to others. One of my most treasured responsibilities has been checking for burnt out bulbs on the endless strings of lights. And yes, I like LOTS of lights. We spend the first six months after Christmas, paying off the electric bill because of my obsession with Christmas lights. I recall hearing comments in the past like “Honey, is there actually a tree under all of those lights?”

As a side note, I am a Christmas light purist…meaning that anything more than lights on your house is overkill. Okay…maybe one of those wired reindeer with white lights is acceptable. But leave the motion activated elves and life size plastic Santa for the department stores. I’m even thinking of beginning a campaign to end the production of those giant inflatable snow globe decorations people have been putting on their lawns in recent years. If you have one, and you wake up on Christmas morning and it’s popped and shriveled up on your lawn, it means that Santa had his little elf named Rob with him when he visited you during the night.

Anyway, this year Christel put up the tree, the younger kids decorated it and Tyler strung the lights. Well, when I returned home from my trip, I was a little confused by how dimly lit the tree was. It turns out that Tyler became very frustrated with my giant garbage bags filled with balled up, tangled strings of lights. Many of them with burnt out bulbs. He became so frustrated that he just threw most of them out. There goes my hope for passing down one of my favorite holiday traditions and responsibilities to my oldest son.

But all is not lost. I discovered that I do have someone who has the potential to carry on the tradition. Someone is rising up out of the masses, who I believe carries great potential. In fact she seems to have a natural gift, as well as the patience and love for testing bulbs. All will be well.

-Rob (AKA: Clark)