For the past several years, Trevor and I have been really making the most out of the Christmas season. This has become my favorite time of year because it has become a rule that Trevor spends every weekend with me and we get every drop of enjoyment out of the preparation and festivities around the city.
Typically, it all starts the day after Thanksgiving, when we take all the change I have collected during the year and Trevor does his own Christmas shopping. (It is amazing what a child can do with about $40 in change!) This year, however, we are considering yesterday as the kick-off to the Christmas season, because we got up early and went down to the Monument Circle and watched the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) volunteers put up the Christmas Lights.
Last year, Trevor had asked me, "How do they get the lights up there?", so I told him we could go watch them do it this year. It really is pretty interesting to see, definitely something that is way cool through the eyes of a 7-year-old boy. We watched the workers for a while, went and had some breakfast and then came back to watch some more. There were so many workers there, and they all worked with precision to get all the strands in place. We were there for about 3 hours, and we were hoping to see the "test lighting" when they switched the tree on for the real first time. But, we decided to be on our way to other things. Maybe next year we'll get our timing right so we can wait for that.
When we were leaving, we heard a radio news story about the lights and the IBEW volunteers who put them up. There are six miles of electrical wires that are put up and nearly 5000 lights. This is the 46th year and some of the volunteers have been doing this project every year for 35 years. This week, the city will bring in the other decorations and we have heard that in addition to the toy soldiers there are some new toy sailors. We'll have to take a drive around the circle next week to see everything before the big day.
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