It's just that I have a couple of adult children who will spend a lot of time at the house around Christmastime (no, not including me!), yet I was the one out there alone on a freezing cold Saturday morning (OK, so it wasn't quite freezing, but it was pretty cold) with the staplegun, ladder and extension cord.

So what's wrong with this picture? The fire marshal might say it's the extension cord supporting about 16 strings of lights. But that's not it.

The thing is, the oldest was making some pretty bold statements back around Thanksgiving. But when it came time to throw the switch, he was not what you'd call electrifying.

"I'm going Griswald this year," he said as he pulled out the boxes filled with the strings of lights on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

"Griswald?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know ... Clark Griswald ... from Christmas Vacation," he explained.

His reference, of course, was to the hilarious Christmas film and the character played by Chevy Chase whose dazzling front yard holiday light display made the casinos on the Vegas strip (and the infamous Alan Aerts display) seem dim in comparison.

"Hey, great!" I said. "Need some help?"

"Nope," he said. "I can do this all by myself. And it's going to be magnificent!"

Well, that's all I needed to hear. I had plenty of other things to keep me busy, so not having to unravel a tangled wad of miniature Christmas lights sounded fine to me.

"That's great," I said, more than happy to pass on the tradition of tacking up the holiday lights to my eldest son. And with that I left him to his work.

Later that night we threw the switch to view the college graduate's magnificent display. But when we did, one lonely string of lights stretched across the garage lit up ... the rest of the house stood in darkness.

"Where are the lights?" I asked. "Where's the magnificence? Where's Clark Griswald?"

That's when the excuses started to fly.

"I didn't have enough extension cords," he explained. "I ran out of staples. Most of the strings were too tangled. Anyway, there were some big college football games on TV."

So after all of that, it was left to me. And with both sons out of the picture, I hauled out the lights, ladder, cords and staples and went to work.

It was a task that was not without incident.

An errant projectile from the electric staplegun caught the middle finger of my left hand. Then, as I was finishing up, I closed the ladder on the middle finger of my right hand. I walked into the house bleeding from both hands after completing the arduous task of holiday home decorating. And I was greeted by my wife.

"Could you hang this out front?" she asked, handing me some ridiculous looking Christmas banner.

"Do you mind if I take care of my injuries first?" I whimpered. "Can't you see I'm bleeding here!?!"

"Oh, let me see," she said, examining my wounds. "Oh my goodness, those are just scratches. Go wash them off and put on some Band Aids, then come back down and hang my banner."

Fine, I thought. A lot she cares. I make my living with these fingers working on this computer keyboard. They should be injured for a million bucks--like Betty Grable's legs, or Randy Johnson's left arm, or Dolly Parton's ... well, you get the idea. Scatches indeed!

Anyway, I did it ... we now have lights. We're not going to win the neighborhood award for best holiday decorations. But if there's an award for most mediocre holiday display--well, we might have a shot.

Now the only question is, who's going to take them all down? Oh, no matter ... we'll worry about that around the Fourth of July.

Best wishes for an bright and sparkling holiday season!

Want to talk? Give me a call at 408.354.3110, or write to dsparrer@svcn.com.