I got a letter in the mail yesterday.  My friend and I have been writing letters during the “most wonderful time of the year” because we don’t have enough to do.

Right.

My dear friend writes “I do believe the Xmas crazy train is going too fast.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I hardly know what day it is and I’m not quite sure where I am supposed to be next.  I’m over-committed.  I need to go somewhere that doesn’t exist, like Bing Crosby’s Holiday Inn; a farm that doubles as a swanky nightclub, but only on holidays.

Walton’s Mountain would be lovely right about now, too.

It felt like Walton’s Mountain here last night as I finally put up the tree on my screen porch with some help from Handy.  We brought it home on Wednesday and set it in the tree stand.  I rearranged two strings of blue and white lights to match my blue window candles and when Handy stopped by to drop something off last night, I convinced him it was time to put on the lights.  We wound them through the tree branches and everything was nearly perfect.  Handy plugged the cord into the outlet and “Voila!”

Then Handy replaced a burnt out bulb and the whole top string zapped out into darkness.

HANDY!

It was like that scene in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story when John Boy Walton, as the eldest, is in charge of decorating the tree and watching out for the younger children.  They have their own ideas about arranging ornaments.  The scene features some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen from the actress who played Elizabeth.  You’re supposed to think Jim Bob hit Elizabeth’s arm and the ornament she’s holding flies out of her hand and breaks, but it you watch closely, (around 31:40) it looks like she is tossing the ornament over her shoulder.  Things get a little crazy; the children are fighting and John Boy shouts “Everybody just calm down!”

(This is also the scene where Mary Ellen calls her brothers and sisters “piss ants” but that’s a different blog post altogether.)

Since there is no problem Handy can’t solve, he replaced the blown fuse and I channeled John Boy’s line from the movie:

“Now remember, keep your fingers crossed ‘cause if one bulb is gone bad, none of them is going to work.”

I crossed my fingers and closed my eyes and the string of lights sparkled again.

It’s true, the Xmas crazy train is going too fast, but I’m going to keep running after it for a few more days.  If I just “calm down” I’m sure I can catch it before I go off the rails completely.

Good night, John Boy!