Reason #15: He put up the Christmas lights!

I had just spent hours untangling over fourteen strands of Christmas lights, and checking all the fuses and lightbulbs. I don't really know why, but it was my goal to light up the outside of our house with every available lighted decoration. I figured, we had stored the lights in "the hole" (our underground storage) for a whole year, we might as well use them. Actually it was more like a year and a half, since we took them down so late the year before last, I didn't have the heart to make DH turn around and put them back up in a month or two!

So, when my Dear Hubby arrived home from a business trip, my "Honey-Do-List" had just one item for him to fulfill. I told him I wanted him to help me put the Christmas Lights up. I even applied the old manipulation-by-guilt trick, interspersing a few words of whining and pleading, with the words, "It would really mean a lot to me."

Dutifully, after a few reminders and strong suggestions from me, DH went out behind the shed to fetch the extension ladder. I realized this was a much-disliked chore for him, and rather unpleasant in the -15 degree weather, with a wind chill of -24 degrees! After all, we do live in Alaska! In fact, I had experienced the bone-chilling cold myself, while putting up a few decorations around the front door. It's not fun at all to be up on a ladder reaching out to place a plastic clip on the ledge of the roof when the clip snaps into two pieces from the extreme cold temperature!

We managed to sort out the plugs after a few false attempts; had a few crisis moments when the clips became sparse (after breaking too many of them); then had a big scare when DH got his jeans stuck in the ladder rope, and fell from the fourth rung to the ground.

Finally, the lights were hung. The moment of truth had arrived. We plugged the lights into the extension and looked up to survey our well-lit roof in awe. Alas! The very last strand we had hung was not lit up! After all my careful checking, there was a short in the wires. And DH had already put the ladder away!

Notwithstanding a bit of grumbling, I soon managed to convince DH to switch the strands of light. He dragged out the ladder--again! Just as he was about to prop the ladder up to the roof, lo and behold, the lights started working!

The Christmas lights were up and we lived happily ever after.