{"id":3739,"date":"2014-12-16T12:32:46","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T18:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/?p=3739"},"modified":"2023-07-20T21:00:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T21:00:03","slug":"ring-christmas-bells-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/ring-christmas-bells-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Ring Christmas Bells..Please?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(From Santa’s vault)<\/p>\n

I was awakened early this morning by a thumping noise coming from the basement followed by a faint sound that reminded me of the bell teacher\u2019s ring to call kids in from recess.<\/p>\n

There has been a little criminal activity in our part of town lately and my first thought was, \u201cthere\u2019s a burglar in the basement. My second thought was \u201cwhat am I going to do about it?\u201d My third thought was, \u201cwhere\u2019s Linda?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I realized that the Christmas season had officially arrived at our house.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s the one making all the noise as she drags out boxes full of decorations that have been stored in the closet under the stairs since last January 1st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Now, I know what you\u2019re thinking; why aren\u2019t you down there helping her ya lazy lug?<\/p>\n

Well, she doesn\u2019t want my help., at least that\u2019s what she says.<\/p>\n

Linda really gets focused on the task at hand and it\u2019s best to stay out of her way until I\u2019m called in to give final approval to what she\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe front window looks great, Honey. Yes, I like the candle sticks on either side of the red bow and tiny twinkling tree.\u201d No, Honey, I can\u2019t see the electrical cords that you\u2019ve neatly camouflaged in green garland. You\u2019ve really outdone yourself again, Honey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally I\u2019ll hear an un-Christmas-like curse come from her sweet lips as she steps back to admire her handiwork and a suction cup holding one of the little wreaths lets go for lack of spit and comes crashing down.<\/p>\n

Linda always says she\u2019s not going to put as much stuff up this year..but, like lovin\u2019 her man, once she gets started it\u2019s awfully hard to stop.<\/p>\n

I did try to help one year.<\/p>\n

Over her objections, I bought a string of bells that played over 90 Christmas songs. My plan was to string them around\u00a0 the inside patio door and fill our house with the joyful sounds of the season.<\/p>\n

\"xmas<\/a><\/p>\n

It seemed easy enough until I discovered that most of the little electronically-operated clappers needed to be bent a bit so they\u2019d strike the bell properly.<\/p>\n

But the biggest problem was trying to keep the bells from touching the curtain which prevented them from having a peal.(sorry)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe three kings of Orient (thunk).\u201d<\/p>\n

After doing much holiday cursing of my own, and to Linda\u2019s great relief, I finally took the bells out to the garage and strung them up above my work bench where they could hang free.<\/p>\n

Well, I thought. Our Christmas Eve guests will still be impressed when they arrive to the sound of familiar carols chiming away by the back door.<\/p>\n

But what I didn\u2019t realize is that the bell\u2019s computer chip was never designed to operate in the cold and before long, \u201cSilent Night\u201d was being played at lightening speed with a lot of the important notes missing.<\/p>\n

I figured out what might be wrong and went in to get something out of the house to fix it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have you got in your hand?\u201d Linda asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes you do, what is it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA hair dryer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA hair dryer..what in the world do you need a hair dryer in the garage for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, to warm up the bell controller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you going to be running in and out of here all night shooting hot air onto those damn bells while your family is in here having Christmas?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a rhetorical question..and I almost blurted out, \u201cwell, as hot as you are right now, maybe you could just stand out here and that would do the trick.\u201d\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"xmas<\/a><\/p>\n

Those Christmas bells are still hanging in the garage right where I strung them up years ago.<\/p>\n

I sometimes plug them in on a 90 degree day in August.<\/p>\n

They work great!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(From Santa’s vault) I was awakened early this morning by a thumping noise coming from the basement followed by a faint sound that reminded me of the bell teacher\u2019s ring to call kids in from recess. There has been a little criminal activity in our part of town lately and my first thought was, \u201cthere\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11586,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions\/11586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}