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I’m wondering if we’ll see a white Christmas this year. There have been a number of times in my adult life we didn’t. In fact I have a picture taken out the front window of our home when we didn’t have snow on New Year’s Day. The weather of late has been wet but too warm to make the white stuff traditionally seen this time of year.

I never remember a Christmas without snow as a kid. It seems to me that we always had plenty of it.

Some say global warming is the cause, but I’d guess most of them do so to sound like they have a clue when they really don’t. After hearing that sentiment time after time, I came up with my own theory and laid it back on those discussing the topic: “I believe things changed dramatically when Mount St. Helens volcano erupted and forever altered the jet stream and prevailing westerly winds.”

Holy Wa!

The fact is I don’t have a clue either.

Like everyone else though we know it‘s coming and I’ve been preparing for a snowy winter. This will include readying the snow blower and my annual duty of putting up the exterior lights and garland. Hopefully it will arrive before my family gathers together for Christmas.

Hanging the lights isn’t a hard job, although I make it out to be. That way my wife, Mary Kay, won’t get any ideas about expanding the arrangement. It is a tradition we’ve held in all the 35 years of living in the same house.

That tradition reminds me of another as a young boy and what the lighting ritual was like around my parents’ home.

Back then there were distinctly different types of lights used for indoors and outdoors. They were larger than the conventional style of today and always ran hot. Those used indoors were a cause of many a house fire started by lights on dry trees. The outside lights were larger and heavy and kicked out enough heat to warm and even dry your gloves by holding your hands close to them. I’d guess they made the home electric meter sweat by all the power they drew when on.

My Dad was in charge of the outdoor lighting. Mom did the tree and other inside specialties.

The kids helped with the outdoor stuff, checking for burned or broken lights and untangling the endless cord which always seemed to somehow knot up.

We had a big blue spruce tree in our front yard. I think it was a tall as our two story house. In the summer it served as an end-zone marker during the countless football games we played in the yard, but by fall it was to be covered with lights in time for Christmas.

Traditionally, it was my twin sisters that took on the task of climbing the big tree and carefully threading the strings of lights through the upper branches while our father coached them from the ground. “No bare spots!” That was the general order. I’d bet they knew every branch by heart after doing the assignment year after year. I don’t know how many seasons they actually did it but it’s all I remember so it had to be a few.

There were steel pillars on the porch that would be wrapped with colored lights as well as the main entrance door.

What made it all special was how they came to be switched on for the season. If my memory serves me right, about a week before Christmas, our aunts and uncles and neighbors would come over with their kids and we’d all stand out in the snow and have a lighting ceremony. There may have even been some caroling involved too.

As in most of our family traditions, it was a prelude to a party and that always made the Holidays special. Christmas and New Year’s ran together with every night a new celebration.

It all started and finished outdoors in the snow.

This weekend, I have some days off and will once again hang the traditional arrangement on our porch, door and window. I first break out the tub with the strings of lights and garland and check them line for line to see if any are burned out. Now instead of replacing bulbs, I do a quick check for a blown plug fuse and if new one doesn’t bring them back to life, a quick run to the store for a replacement set is in order. I don’t ever worry about tangling as I have mastered the spooling technique when they are put away for the season.

I won’t admit this to my wife, but while I’m putting them up, I’ll recall all the years I’ve done this on my home and how when the kids were little and used to watch from inside, eyes sparkling from reflection and smiles as bright as the lights themselves in anticipation of Christmas.

In recent year my sons have helped me put them up. I’m not sure if it is to make it easier or that they’re a little concerned about the ol’ man being up on a ladder. They’re both busy the day I’m putting them up so it will be a solo effort.

That’s okay. I’ll just take my time and again look back on years gone by and look forward in anticipation when everyone will once again be together at home for a white Christmas.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.