Thirty-something speaks
Stockings flung in the attic without much care

Mike Maddock

I make it a point to spend as little time as possible in my attic. Bad things happen to me in there. The last time I spent any significant time in my attic, I was chasing squirrels. I took an unfortunate step, missed a beam, and my left leg plunged through the dry wall ceiling into my bedroom.

The squirrels mocked me as my foot dangled from the ceiling like some sort of flea market chandelier. That's a trip to the emergency room and a couple hundred dollars I'm not prepared to make again, but it's Christmas time now and that means it's time to get out the decorations.

So guess where I spent my weekend?

Thankfully, the squirrels have moved on, but that doesn't make my attic any less creepy. The bad part about storing Christmas decorations is that it's guaranteed those decorations have been in the attic at least one full year. That means a year's worth of stuff has been piled on top of the ornaments, and the blinking lights have been shoved to the darkest, deepest corners of the attic where only squirrels feel comfortable.

The stockings may be hung by the chimney with care a few weeks out of the year, but they spend a vast majority of their time hidden behind old bedposts, ancient golf clubs, and a gigantic scary pile of Halloween decorations in a dusty dimly lit part of the house no one wants to get near. They're so well hidden behind booby traps of metal framing, five woods, and plastic jack-o-lanterns. It's enough to make Indiana Jones stay in the classroom. I don't have that luxury. It's Christmas time, and while my wife is quite insistent on decorating, she isn't volunteering to take over attic duty any time soon.

The problem with an annual trip to the darkest, deepest corners of the attic is that my back seems less and less willing to cooperate each year. When I was 27, I could bend and weave through the maze of furniture we're unwilling to put in our living room (but equally unwilling to throw away) to pick up a box of electric candles. I could step over the containers of high school memorabilia to grab the dancing Santa Claus with ease, but now that I'm 37, such tasks don't come quite so easy.

It may be that I've got 37 years worth of junk stored away in my attic making those trips that much more difficult, or it may be that now I've got the flexibility of the Tin Man. I'm pretty sure it's the latter. At least the Tin Man had an axe. He could just chop his way through difficult situations. I don't have that luxury either.

When I was 27, grabbing that last box of garland wedged thoroughly between the girders may have caused me a little soreness, but now that same box could cause me a lot of traction and a trip to the chiropractor.

But decorating for Christmas is a tradition, and I'm a traditional kind of guy...even if my only real role in the process is fetching boxes and carrying them downstairs. At least I'll get to look forward to the New Year when I get to retrieve the empty boxes, re-pack them, and take them back to their secluded corners of the attic for another year.