We’re not a designated Christmas-light house or anything. But if you follow the map, you’ll drive past our place.
So technically, we’re part of it.
As you cruise by Chez Chamberlain in your automobile stuffed with loved ones, you’ll be in for a treat. It’s a string of white Christmas lights I wrapped around a shrub three years ago.
This festive display has remained there ever since: spring, summer, fall, winter. It is a perennial testament to our love of Christmas and seasonal lighting. Also, it helps light the pathway to the house.
But this year, because we’re on the Christmas-light map and all, my wife wanted me to step it up.
“Let’s put up more lights,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because people will be driving by, expecting a Christmas-light show. And we just have that one string of lights.”
“That’s OK,” I said. “Leave them wanting more. Let our house be a palate-cleanser before the more exciting houses present themselves.”
“But it looks so pathetic,” my wife said. “We don’t want to let people down.”
It obvious she was keen to get on the Christmas-light bandwagon in a big way. God knows there’s peer pressure. One neighbour’s yard hosts an entire nativity scene. He dresses up as Santa Claus each year, collecting alms for the needy. Another neighbour has a merry-go-round enclosed in a giant plastic bubble. What this has to do with Christmas I’m not sure. Perhaps the horses are reindeer.
I did not want to put up more Christmas lights. This would require driving to stores, buying lights and installing them. Ladders would likely be involved. So would tools. Perhaps a hammer — I’m unclear on the exact details.
For most people, such a stack of Christmas-light negatives would constitute a compelling argument. But I knew it wouldn’t wash with my wife. She’d offer to hold the ladder and go look for the hammer.
So, in a flash of inspiration, I argued against Christmas lighting on philosophical grounds. I said I’d become a minimalist.
Recently, there was a newspaper article about these guys from Ohio. Two friends. They chucked the rat race in favour of a minimalist lifestyle. Now they live in a mountainside hut in Montana. Joshua Field Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus have even written a book, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life.
The article said Millburn once worked 80-hour weeks overseeing a chain of 150 stores. Now he’s lost 70 pounds and writes a blog.
I told my wife about the mountainside hut, the blog and Millburn’s astonishing weight loss.
“This article has convinced me the minimalist lifestyle is something we need to embrace immediately,” I said. “Sadly, it puts the kibosh on more Christmas lights.”
My wife frowned. She appeared unconvinced, so I tried another tack.
I’d read another story about a Belgian researcher who developed a brand-new technology. It allows text messages and other computer data to be projected onto people’s contact lenses.
So I told my wife about this. That one seemed to have the desired effect. She said the notion of receiving text messages via contact lenses was appalling. A misuse of technology.
“Precisely my point,” I said. “This Christmas, let us embrace a simpler lifestyle. Aside from the computer, television and automobiles, let us eschew technology completely. Sadly, this scuttles our plans for more Christmas lights, as I believe most rely on advanced LED technology.”
At that very moment, my wife suggested I (a) get off the couch, (b) go to the store and (c) buy some more Christmas lights. She expressed this in such a passionate way, using extraordinarily vivid language, that I lost all interest in pursuing a minimalist lifestyle or rejecting technology.
So I drove to the discount store and bought a diorama featuring Santa and his elves. On sale. You just inflate it, plug it in and Santa makes merry with his elfin helpers.
It’s extremely bright and faintly menacing. Our pug dog, Ollie, whimpers when he sees it. So do the neighbourhood kids. But I believe, as the years go on, everyone will come to love it.
