Photo Hunt: Long

This week's theme is "long," so in continuing with my Christmas decorations series, I'm posting a shot of a long strand of Christmas lights.

When I was a kid, my Dad LOVED having a ton of lights. I think the tree was about the only thing he actually liked about Christmas, and it had to be just covered in lights and tinsel. We lived in a very cramped apartment, so stringing up the lights took up the entire living room and part of the dining room too. My sister and I would tiptoe through the long strands of blinking, twinkling or just shining lights, checking for bulbs that weren't working. Then would come the actual placing on the tree part. We'd form a line, holding out the whole strand so it didn't get tangled with any of the others, with Dad wrapping it around the tree just so. It had to be done perfectly, you see. No single light could be out of place. By the time the lights were all up, the tree would look like it couldn't possibly have room for ornaments, but we'd pile those on as well. That was mostly left to the girls though. Mamie would place the lowest ornaments, I'd take the middle and Mom would get the stuff that needed to be up high. Then Mame and I would be off to bed and Mom would rearrange the ornaments so that there weren't any glaring gaps or clumps, and dad would cover the whole thing in two or three boxes of tinsel.

My tree these days is a bit different. We only have three strands of lights, quite a bit fewer ornaments (we haven't been collecting them for 20+ years!) and no tinsel as it's just too tempting for the dogs. It's not quite the same, but it still holds that spark of Christmas wonder. I know it's really Christmastime when I see the hubby start laying out those strands of lights!

Stay tuned for more Christmas memories tomorrow as the Blog Ninjas present Mystery Topic Challenge #5, and more photo fun next week with the theme of "small."