Garland or Garlic?

6/24/2012

Garland or Garlic?

Are you sitting there scratching your head about what these two words might have in common.  In most homes there probably is no special memory - but I have one that I can remember all these years later.

Our middle son loved Christmas, the lights, the garland, the lights, the tree, the lights.  You get the idea.  He loved Christmas decorations and lights in particular.  Now he wasn't a saint and on Christmas morning tore into his gifts with gusto - but he loved then as he does now - Christmas lights and decorations.

We have a picture of him probably in the early 1980's standing on a rickety stool trying to attach one string of lights on our little (and I do mean little) tree in the front yard.  That one singular moment set the tone for our family for all the years that the boys were still children.

This son was unable to say garland and he called it garlic - see where I'm going with this?  I don't remember what Jeff and I were doing that particular day; but when we went into the boys' bedroom we were "thrilled" to see the "garlic" hanging from ten penny nails (for those of us ladies who have no idea what that means, it's a nail that's 3 inches long) all over his room. (Really an over the top nail but it's what he found).  He was so proud of the garlic and we left it hanging.  Why not?  By now the holes he had put in the wall were already there - might as well leave until time to paint.  And for those of you who know Jeff and I well, there are only THREE perfect days a year in which to paint, and for the last 37 years, I have never been able to determine which three days he's talking about.  I'm always told it's too hot, too humid, too cold, too wet, too dry - too something.  When we moved out of our starter home in 1986 those holes were patched over and the room repainted - no harm done. 

When we moved to Maryland in 1986, this middle son would have been 8 years old and we moved into a two story house - ah the potential for lights was everywhere.  With the help of his older brother, they strung lights across the roof, down the sides of the house, around every window, gutter, post, plant, door they could find.  Coming home each evening I literally could see the glow from our house before actually turning on to our street!  I suspect that even in fog our house could be seen by planes going by!

Our son had no problem going from door-to-door asking if they needed help putting up their lights outside!  We actually had a neighbor and a good friend that paid him to string lights to make our street more festive.

When we had our house painted - it must have been a perfect day - or maybe because we were paying someone else to do the actually painting, we told the painter to just paint over the holes.  Much like years ago the damage was already done.  At least if the holes were left alone, the boys would not try creating new ones.

The boys are gone now and so are the lights as well as the garlic.  Oh to be sure we have a little and rather pathetic (so the boys say) artificial tree that comes with lights and we put on a few ornaments and garland; but it's not the same I can tell you that.

We made a bigger effort last Christmas to decorate with lights for our grandson, then three years old.  By day the stringing of the lights looked a bit Topsy-turfy; but the "awe" factor was definitely there for this little boy by night.  So Jeff and I are now sharing "garlic" and lights with another generation - how cool is that?

P