December 9, 2018

On the first day of December I set about filling my house with light, first with candles in the windows. These were one of Bill’s favorite Yuletide decorations, and he always helped.  I test the plastic candles, taking them into the dark bathroom to see if the light bulbs are burned out and replacing as needed. Most of the candles work by sensor and come on automatically at dusk. And almost all need to be plugged in, meaning acrobatic acts to reach connections.

One is battery-powered, and despite new batteries, I cannot get that candle to work. Maybe it is the bulb? I think to myself, trying to twist the bulb off—and my fingers and thumb shatter the thin bulb. My thumb is now festively decorated with four shards of light bulb, and is bleeding. And there are thin pieces of bulb all over the table and floor.

On the fourth day of December it is bitterly cold and so of course I am decorating outside. Bill never thought outside lights were necessary, so I was on my own. He would watch with amusement as I climbed up and down the ladder and fastened strings of icicle lights to the barn gutters, sometimes getting the connections wrong and having to do a section over. 

I no longer climb ladders, but instead hang fresh evergreen garlands from the fence surrounding my entry gate. The next step is to drape the garlands with two strands of light. I could not find the timer—not in the box with the strands of lights, not in the utility room—so I had to order a new timer from Amazon. I plug in the new timer at the outside GFCI connection and plug in the lights and set the timer to ON. No lights. I push the buttons on the GFCI. No lights. I go into the house and return with a nightlight to test the GFCI. Nothing. I try pushing the buttons in a different sequence, and lo! we have lights. I set them to turn on at dusk and off after 6 hours. But that night I look out and realize that the two strands do not match: one is a warm white and the other a cold white. I think I hear Bill chuckling.

I also string two artificial garlands from the fence surrounding the horse barn, but that timer is not working so when I go to the grocery store I buy a new timer, and lo! that night we have lights at the barn. And on the  fifth day of December I find the two timers from the year before, one in the tack room still attached to a green extension cord, and one in the utility room, in a place that must have made sense at the time. Now I have four timers to misplace after Christmas.

On the eighth day of December, I arrange fresh green pine boughs and pine cones on the fireplace mantel. For many years, I added white pillar candles, but with the drying pine boughs we had a fire hazard. I now use the white wax candles that are battery powered and work via a remote control. I tested the candles yesterday. I step back to admire the bedecked mantel and press the remote control. No lights. Probably the remote needs a new battery. I sigh. i will tackle that problem tomorrow, when I also will string the Christmas tree with lights, a task I inherited after Bill’s death.

I turn to the dining room table centerpiece I have created; the bowl is filled with boxwood and holly and circled with four ivory candles. I strike a match and light the candles.

The candles fill the room with their soft light. The electric candles glow at the windows, and outside the mismatched lights give a welcome. Perhaps wherever he is, Bill can see the glow, and know that I am still here, lighting up the darkness.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, God Jul, Happy Kwanzaa, and Blessed Solstice to all!