I am approaching the Christmas spirit with a bit of hesitation this year. Oddly enough, Kevin has morphed from a complete Scrooge to a total Christmas enthusiast. I think you will understand my fear.

During our first Christmas together in Oregon, I was living alone in my little one bedroom apartment. Kevin was in school down in Corvallis but he would come up to visit me on weekends and holidays. As Christmas approached, I decided I wanted a tree for my little home. Kevin’s response was, “great, lets slay a tree for Jesus.” Needless to say, this remark considerably dampened my enthusiasm but I managed to shake it off and I headed to the nearest Fred Meyer with Kevin in tow. He grumped through the tree lot, declared every tree too big, and we ended up getting in a spat about how best to lash my douglas fir to the car. By the time we made it home, I was hopping mad. He had totally ruined my holiday spirit with his comments about how stupid it was to get a tree for an apartment.

The next year, Kevin agreed to help pick out the tree and he did cut back on the snide comments. However, there was still a lot of rumbling about why did we need a tree if we were living in an apartment? Last year was our first year in the house and we decided no pre-cuts for us. Instead, we headed into the hills and Kevin turned lumberjack and cut his own. He greatly enjoyed tromping around the hill and was willing to cut down as many trees as I liked. This year, he actually admitted he was looking forward to getting a tree so I think I have managed to convert him.

Now, I hear you asking yourself, “why is Chrissie so paranoid? Everything sounds normal.” Ah, but I haven’t told you about the Christmas lights.

Over the weekend, Kevin took Artie out on their nightly stroll. On his return, he asked me a rather odd questions – where can you buy moving reindeer made of Christmas lights. I immediately sensed trouble and went to yellow alert. After further questioning, Kevin revealed that on the walk, he saw this cool house with neat Christmas lights. The next day, he took me there. Sure enough, it had multi-colors large and small, icicles, and even Merry Christmas in red and green lights. Be the show stopper were four wire reindeer outlined with white lights. As Artie and I stood there speechless, Kevin pointed our with awe, “see how they are moving?” Sure enough, the heads slowly swivelled back and forth on the front lawn.

Kevin has decided the gauntlet has been thrown down. We hung our simple strand of lights but I can tell he wants more. He’s trying to find a way onto the roof and is musing about running extension cords so he can light our picket fence. I’m hoping that lighting the tree will curb his mad planning. If anyone knows were you can purchase moving Christmas reindeer, please keep that information to yourself. Thank you.