Opinion: Hang a little hope this Christmas season

When I continually summit a 10-foot ladder to adorn the living room tree with clear, bright lights, I keep asking, “Is this a good use of your life?”

When the 14-foot pre-lit tree is finally plugged in, I discover, right in the middle of the trunk, “pre-lit” actually means “pre-insanity.”

Then there is the outside holiday experience. Much like Clark Griswold, I have actually stapled my coat to a wooden shutter. I have hung 4-foot wreaths that were mistakenly mounted upside down and, of course, had to be corrected. I have witnessed an inflatable Santa take flight like the space shuttle in a stiff wind. And I have frozen essential parts of my body all for the sheer delight of increasing City Utilities’ bottom line.

It is December. I should be designing the leadership development programs for the six new clients I already have committed to in 2008. There are e-mails to write, a Web site that needs some serious revisions, a CD series I need to write and then record – and the list goes on.

So why am I teetering on ladders, addressing, in cursive writing, Christmas card envelopes, shaking out the hibernating Santa outfit and endlessly wrapping the entranceway banister with garland and twinkling lights?

There are some things in life that are a total waste of time, but those things also are essential.

Sometimes it appears to be a colossal waste of time to stare at the dappled pallet of a sunset, make a fort with a grandchild using old blankets and folding chairs, turn off a Blackberry, or turn off the light, close the door and turn your back to an office whining with work.

When I decorate our home and office for Christmas, I remind myself that the sum total of life is not calculated in a 401(k) account. With numbed fingers and green florist wire between my teeth, I sculpt joy once a year.

Coming down my street, I suck in small gulps of air when I gawk at the wonder of my unremarkable house that glows with wonder. Average has been reincarnated into extraordinary. Darkness has been invaded by a phalanx of marching white lights. The cold has met its match with unexpected winter warmth.

And hope wins.

With every ornament that is hung and every strand of lights that is willed into illumination, hope gets a second chance.

Anyone interested in a little hope?

Iran continues to rattle a radioactive saber. Venezuela threatens to cut off life support systems to our SUVs. Politicians slather our senses with hallucinating hype. Wall Street obviously has decided to make the Barn Swing at Silver Dollar City its new logo. And we are killing each other with guns and alcohol in record numbers.

So stapling a few bright lights to a door frame in a cold, dark winter evening may not be a bad idea.

Christmas is the quick story of eternal hope. Invading the pungent smells of manure and the frigid rigidity of darkness, someone stomped into our predictable ordinariness and screamed, “Unto you is born this day.”

Every once in awhile, I need to remind myself that my life is ultimately not the sum of a collection of annual performance reviews, paid Mastercard bills or printed endorsements from satisfied customers.

No, I will be measured against the backdrop of whether I stapled bright lights to those I touched.

So haul out the dusty boxes from the attic filled with the crustations of Christmases past. You will discover the string of 200 lights that have expired during the summer, the Santas that have classic cases of bedhead because they got smashed against artificial tree boxes, the chipped Christmas bear cookie jar and the discolored stockings for the mantel.

Pull it all out. Plug it in. And savor hope.

Cal LeMon of Executive Enrichment Inc. solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. He can be reached at execenrichment@aol.com.[[In-content Ad]]