improve on this

if you think you’ve seen all the home improvement shows on tv, think again.

because this month, brought to you by the creator of “let’s show these people how we do things down south,” comes a very special holiday episode of “pimp my yard.”

according to the executive producer (my wife), our all-out holiday attitude is gonna turn our new neighborhood on its festive ear.

where once we plugged in some white, animated yard deer, she says we’re busting out the life-size inflatable nativity scene.



the part of the luminescent candy canes will now be played by flying polar bears.


would i kid you?

to quote steve martin in roxanne, “lights? you’ve never seen so many lights!”

and my response to all this—the cost, the logistics, the frost-fingered labor—is?

“yes, dear.”

not because my wife wears the pants in the family (though she does.) not because she’s determined to whip up holiday fervor to unheard-of levels in our new home (though she is). and not, by golly, because she’s footing the bill for this entire extravaganza (though, by golly, she is).

no.

to my wife i reflexively say “yes, dear” at this time of year because in the past i’ve been characterized as a holiday grinch—and to her there is no greater failing (except failing to buy her “something fun and pretty,” of course).



grinchy? moi?

don’t misunderstand. i love my wife. she is a lovely woman, a wonderful mother, and a great person to hang out with.

but if you get between her and her enjoyment of any holiday, you’ll bear her wrath. and by that i mean you’ll have a permasmile surgically attached to your face.

because we are gonna have fun, i’m here to tell you, and don’t you forget it!

where was i? oh yes, “pimp my yard.”

frankly, i have no idea how all this hullabaloo qualifies as “how we did things down south.” i guarantee you’ll never see these holiday decorating ideas in southern living magazine. but this in no way diminishes the fact that my wife is a lovely woman, a wonderful mother and a great person to hang out with.

this time of year, she wouldn’t have it any other way.