O HOLY NITE

In central Florida where I now live Christmas starts November 1 and there tons of twinkling lights and towns with their own snow making machines that gives one the spirit of the holidays without the frostbite.  And now after concerts, parades and festivals at all the theme parts it's just  a week until the big day…

...And I’m thinking about a much different time... riding with my family looking at the many heavily decorated houses in Millville that were our competition vying for the annual big prize – the Christmas Home Decorating Contest which included a picture on the front page of the Daily Republican and a $25.oo savings bond (which would cover about two days of the added charges on the electric bill)  After years of adding lights and wishing, I was determined that we was going to be “OUR YEAR!”  I had a plan.

We had just moved into our new very modern designed home.  And I had an idea for a decoration so unique it would be a sure  winner.  I found it thumbing through a well-read Popular Mechanics at the barber shop.  Now I just had to convince my Dad that we could construct  this plywood decoration?  And it was going to fit perfectly on our big stone fireplace wall that was the front of our house.

At supper two weeks before the contest I showed the plan  for my 16-foot creation.  My Dad looked at it and was a bit skeptical.  “Hum…that’ll take a lot of plywood,” was his only response.  But he wasn’t noted for being very verbose.  Right away I could see reasoning wasn’t going to work with the realist of the family – so I started to work on my Mom. She could get him to do practically anything.  Two nights later after the dishes were put in our brand-new dish washing machine my Dad said, “Let’s see those plans again.”  And I knew the mom had done her part.  

We started the next evening in the “workshop” which my Dad built before he started building our new house – he was an artist in wood and his shop had every wood working machine a craftsman could want from lathe to router. I say “we worked” on my plan – but like most times he worked, I watched.  First, he laid out a full-scale drawing of the decoration on brown paper.  Transferred it to two sheets of plywood on the shop floor – this very large work of art was taking shape.  Over the next few nights he cut out the intricate shapes.  He was very patient and methodical in his work.  My job was to paint all the surfaces a flat black as each piece was done.  He trusted me to handle that task.  The night of the judging  was looming closer and I was worried we wouldn't make it.  My mom had  filled out the entry blank and mailed it to the newspaper – with the title of our entry – “O Holy Night”.  The die was cast and we had to finish it in before the weekend.  And we made it.   I helped Dad attach our masterpiece to the front of our house on the chimney.  I could not wait until dark so we could see how it looked.  Darkness came early as always on my Mom’s birthday, December 21st and I announced that winning the prize was going to be her present!  With a birthday so close to Christmas mom always got gypped out a present and a party.  We all went to the front of our house.  Dad plugged in the extension cord and our tribute to the season beamed with a yellow glow.  There it was, a 16’ by 4’  backlit silhouette that told the Christmas Eve Story – on the left were the three Magi riding plywood camels toward the palm trees of the City of a Bethlehem which was in the center complete with a radiating star in the imagined sky;  on the right were a couple shepherds staring at an angel hovering above them; running along the bottom of the tableau in 12  inch letters  “O HOLY NITE” – (we didn’t have room for “night”).   The plan seemed to have worked out.  And it was indeed unique – except for the countless other readers of PM that attempted to make it – but in Millville it would literally stand alone.  I knew it would win us the coveted prize – a $25 dollar savings bond and a year of bragging rights at school.  My mother, with tears in her eyes, whispered, “It’s just beautiful…the best birthday present ever…just beautiful…”  My Dad said, “I wish it was brighter.”  He was always the perfectionist.  I said nothing but I was very proud of the way it turned out.

That weekend when Dad turned on the rest of our electric testament to the season – my city of Bethlehem just looked like a large black stripe on our fireplace wall. We hadn’t factored into the design the ambient light from about hundred red and green lights under the eves and outlining our entire house.   Dad added more lights for two nights straight - but the effect or lack of effect remained the same.  I was crushed.  My creation turned out to be just an ugly black box.  Needless to say,  we didn’t win; we didn’t even get on the  honorable mentions.  

The next Christmas Dad tried the shadow box once again in a different spot but with the same result and then it was relegated to the scrap woodpile.  Year after year we added  lights, a plastic Santa and Sleigh, candelabras in each window - but  we never did when the contest.  But I did learn an important lesson.  The best laid plans may look great on paper – but sometimes in the bright light of reality - they just don't work.