My Leg Lamp

My girls really like “A Christmas Story”. The one where “You’ll shoot you’re eye out!”

We had Ken, Roxie & their girls over for dinner recently and the girls wanted to watch it. I decided, “Whatever. Never mind that Christmas was two months ago.” And turned it on. Even though they like the movie, they quickly got distracted and were off to play dress-up. Did we turn the movie off? No way!

All the adults can almost recite it line by line – it’s a great movie! We all have our favorite part. Mine is “The Leg Lamp”.

Now, if you’ve never seen the movie, you are truly missing out. Never the less, I’ll fill you in.

The Old Man (he isn’t given a name, he’s just “Old Man” – really, that’s how it is in the credits), gets notification that he has won a major award. He has no idea what it is, but he’s ecstatic none the less. When it finally arrives, it’s in a crate labeled “Fragile”. Old Man pronounces it “Fra-GEE-lay” and thinks it’s something Italian. Anyone who has seen the movie knows what it means when someone describes an item as “fra-GEE-lay”. Old Man opens the crate, digs around, and pulls out a lamp.

A lamp sounds harmless enough, but this is a life-size plastic leg, complete with a high heeled shoe and fishnet stockings. I could see how this would be something Italian – Italian whore house maybe, but Italian. The lampshade accompanying the lamp is black with fringe on it – I think it is supposed to look like a skirt.

Old Man puts it in the front picture window for all, to the horror of the mom (again, no name), to see. One day the mom is watering the plants and “accidently” tips the lamp over and it breaks into a bunch of pieces. “Was it an accident? No one will ever know, but the saga of the lamp will be discussed and debated in the Parker family for years to come!”

That same line is repeated in our family (we replace Parker with Covey). You see, I have my own leg lamp so to speak.

It’s really a boot.

Some time ago, Hubbys’s mom gave him a boot Christmas ornament. That first Christmas together, I opted not to put the boot on the tree. It didn’t fit the “theme” I was going for (mostly Disney ornaments), and at the time, it wasn’t really my taste. This happened for a couple of years before Hubby actually asked me about it. I explained, but he insisted it go on the tree. Fine.

A year later, when we got out the Christmas decorations, the boot was in the ornament box – BROKEN! I could swear up & down that I did not break it, but Rob would not believe me.

I got away with leaving the broken boot in the box for a couple more years (he wouldn’t let me throw it away), before I finally got out the glue. We had had glue for quite some time as I had not used it all up on purpose. Why he didn’t get the glue out himself, I just don’t know.

After repairing the boot with great care, I was going to place it on the tree. By now Disney was not the theme because we had slowly acquired several bright & colorful non-Disney ornaments. I start out placing ornaments here & there haphazardly. As I get further along, I fill in bare spots. It just so happened there was a bare spot on the side of the tree. Of course, this was the perfect spot for the bone of contention, “The Boot”.

Boy did I get an earful for that! He insisted that I move it to front & center – to prove forevermore that I did not break the boot on purpose.

Now, it’s an annual game – to him. He watches me put up ornaments every year and always reminds me to put up the boot – front & center. Considering he doesn’t help put up the Christmas ornaments, I’ll tell you where I’d like to stick a boot (but not “The Boot”) – backside center!

Silver lining:
1. I have grown to appreciate the boot over the years. I only pretend to not want to put it in the front.

2. We have one of the weirdest Christmas traditions.

3. Hubby at least helps me get the tree & decoration boxes out of the basement - the tree is heavy!