Psycho's Ho-Ho Horrors

Lights Display

Lights Display

-

My wife did it every year. As soon as the calendar was flipped to December, she turned into a seasonal monster. She was normally a wonderful, caring woman, but in the holiday season she became something else entirely.

She had to bake every treat known to man and deliver them to our family, friends, and neighbors. She had to send a Christmas card to every person she'd ever come in contact with. We had to have the biggest, greenest Christmas tree, and the lights display outside had to be perfect.

To most, she simply seemed like a festive person, who loved making others feel the joy of the seasons. They didn't have to live with the woman though.

December first had come around, snow was already on the ground, and my darling wife woke me at 3:30 in the morning by shoving me around violently.

"Get your lazy ass up! Its Christmas time." she declared.

I moaned at the interruption, but slowly sat up. I knew better than to try and ignore her nagging, things would only get worse. On year, she covered the bed in snow when I refused to get out of bed.

"I'm going to the store to pick up some ingredients for the cookies and fudge. I want the lights up on the house by time I get back." she barked while walking out of the room.

I heard the front door open and close, followed by the hum of her cars engine leaving the driveway. I was tempted to roll over and doze off again, but decided against it.

Moaning pitifully, I got out of the warm bed and dressed in my winter apparel. With my morning ruined and my head hung low, I trudged out into the frigid cold.

The lights were in the shed around back, and I listened as my footsteps crunched through the fresh snow while I made my way there. It was still to dark to see anything properly. The only light was a faint sliver of pink on the horizon, which was present most of the time during the darkness of winter.

Gradually I pulled the boxes of decorations from the shed, and began piling them outside. We had more lights than anyone else in town, and I became annoyed with my wife all over as I pulled the twentieth box out, and turned round to see twenty more waiting.

Once all the boxes were sitting on the snowy ground, I piled one on top of the other, and carried the two boxes full of cheer round to the front. Within an hour and a half, all the boxes had been relocated, my wife still no where to be seen.

I started with the yard, deciding it would be best to wait and do the house when there was more light. I sat up the nativity set in front of the porch, and on the other side of the walkway I placed the blinking white light snowman family. Further out in the yard I positioned the mechanical elves working in a toy factory, and mechanical reindeer. After lining the sidewalk in front of the yard and the path to the house with flashing red and white candy canes, the sun was up enough for me to start on the house itself.

My wife liked it when our home looked like a bright gingerbread house, and so every inch had to have a lightbulb.

I started with the door. Covering it entirely in blue lights, I added three round green "gumdrops" down the center to add to the effect. Once the door was done, I started adding the red lights to the trip and porch. The task was tedious, but after a few hours that step too was completed. Next came the blue icicle lights around the roof, and soon I was ready to start on the wall sidings.

I hated doing the walls more than anything, it was so time consuming and dangerous. My wife still wasn't home, and even if she was I knew she would refuse to hold the ladder, claiming she had other things to do.