So, you’re wondering about that “big christmas,” huh?
Yeah, that one. The one where I thought, “Let’s make this Christmas unforgettable.” And boy, was it unforgettable, just maybe not for all the right reasons I initially planned. It wasn’t some company project gone sideways, like some stories you hear. Nah, this was all me, in my own backyard, trying to go big.
It all kicked off with this grand idea. I wanted to do the whole nine yards for the festive season. I wasn’t just thinking about a sad little tree and a string of lights. Nope. I was imagining a full-blown outdoor spectacle. You know, lights flashing in time with music, those huge inflatable Santas that your neighbors three streets over could spot, the whole shebang. My family thought I was a bit nuts, and looking back, they probably had a point.
First things first, I jumped into what I loosely called “planning.”
I scribbled some ideas down on a piece of scrap paper. Convinced myself, “How tough can this really be?” Then I hit the internet and ordered a mountain of lights – seriously, enough to light up a small village. All sorts of types, colors, and those fancy controllers. And the inflatables! My bank account was probably having a heart attack, but I just kept telling myself, “It’s for the ‘big christmas’!”
- The boxes started arriving. So. Many. Boxes. I think the delivery driver put a curse on my house.
- Then I tried to untangle the first batch of lights. That adventure alone took up the better part of an afternoon. No joke.
- It quickly dawned on me that the few old extension cords I had lying around weren’t going to cut it. They wouldn’t even reach the end of my garden, let alone power this mini carnival I was dreaming up.
Next up was the actual setup. I managed to drag my brother into it, mostly by promising him an extra-large portion of Christmas turkey. He showed up, took one look at the chaos of boxes and wires, and just let out this long, weary sigh. We started lugging everything out into the yard. Man, it was freezing. My fingers went numb pretty fast. And the instruction manual for the main light controller? Might as well have been written in ancient Sumerian for all the sense it made.
And then, just as I was getting into the swing of things, the problems began to pile up, one after another.
The biggest headache? Power. I kept tripping the circuit breakers. Now, I’m no electrician, so my “method” was pretty much just plugging stuff in wherever and hoping for the best. Not the smartest move, I’ll admit. At one point, the power in half the house just died. My wife was, let’s say, less than thrilled. “Big christmas, big electricity bill, big trouble,” she muttered. She wasn’t wrong on any count.
Then the lovely British weather decided to join the party. A sudden, fierce gust of wind decided my giant inflatable snowman looked better in Mrs. Peterson’s award-winning azaleas next door. Smoothing that over was a real joy. Had to perform emergency surgery on Frosty with a roll of duct tape. He looked a bit like he’d been in a brawl afterwards, a bit deflated, literally and figuratively.
And the dream of lights perfectly synced to music? Total fantasy. I wasted hours watching online tutorials, mucking about with software, and all I managed to create was a chaotic, flickering mess that was more likely to trigger a headache than spread Christmas cheer. It was supposed to be a “Silent Night” vibe, not “Attack of the Killer Strobes.” One string of lights would be doing a gentle, slow pulse while the one next to it was going full-on disco panic. A right mess, it was.
So, how did this “big christmas” extravaganza turn out in the end?
Well, it definitely wasn’t the picture-perfect, coordinated light show I’d seen in my head. Not by a long shot. A good chunk of the lights just flat-out refused to cooperate. The grand music synchronization ended up being just me playing Christmas tunes from a regular old speaker. And the duct-taped snowman looked a bit tragic, if I’m honest. But you know what? People actually stopped to look. The local kids seemed to get a real kick out of the sheer, unadulterated chaos of it all. Maybe it was so spectacularly over-the-top in its failure that it circled back around to being entertaining?
We certainly had a “big christmas” in terms of the sheer effort involved, and yeah, the electricity bill that followed was pretty massive too. I definitely learned a thing or two. Chiefly, that some grand visions are best left to folks who actually know what they’re doing, or at the very least, require a bit more than a doodle on a napkin and a boatload of wishful thinking. And I guess I also learned that sometimes, even if your project is a bit of a shambles, if you put your heart into it (and a lot of tangled wires), people can still appreciate the effort. Or maybe they just enjoy a good chuckle at your expense.
Would I attempt another “big christmas” like that? You can ask me again when my fingers have thawed out from last time. My brother, though? He’s already informed me he’s “washing his hair” every weekend from November to January. Permanently.
