I don't blog on weekends..

I had a really great, busy weekend. It was full of friends, one wedding, putting up some Christmas lights and dinner with my Mother.

Which one of these things were blog worthy? None probably, but I'm gonna go with the Christmas lights.

My dude has a tree in his front yard that is tall, really tall, taller than his house tall. Majority of the tree is in his front yard, but some of it hangs above the fence into his back yard. This year, he decided he'd like to light it up like a Christmas tree.

The concept, to somehow get the lights to the top of the tree and wrap them around toward the bottom.

The trouble, 1: how do we get the lights all the way to the top? B: wrapping them around the tree with a 6 foot fence blocking us half way around.

We started with 100 feet of lights, two poles, wire, a rock and tape. I'm not very good with measurements, but I'm guessing each pole was about 7 feet long.

He tied the poles together using the wire, then reinforced them with the electrical tape, we now had a pole that was 14 feet, roughly. Then, wire was used to make a hook at one end of the pole. Next, we taped the rock to one end of the string of lights.

Using our home made light-hook-pole, he raised the rock end of the lights as high as he could and tossed it over a branch. My job was to feed the lights and be the "eyes" of the mission.

So, using said pole, we draped the lights around the tree, one branch at a time, till we got to the fence. That's when we had to toss the pole and lights over the fence, go through the house to the back yard, light that side of the tree, toss pole and lights back over fence, and go back to the other side. Repeat, as necessary, till tree is lit. Or, till you run out of lights half way down. Then, go to Wal-Mart, buy over 100 more feet of clear lights with green wire, come back to the house and finish... in the dark, because it's after 5pm, and winter nights in VA get dark early.

By the time we were done, I could not feel my fingers or my nose, but the tree looks fantastic! And they'll be up all year folks, I do not suggest doing this every year. Buy lights that are easily camouflaged, no one will ever know...