Comedy and Funny Story About Christmas: How To Make Christmas Lawn Ornaments

If anyone asked my husband Bob to describe me in a few words, among my many accolades, I'll bet the word stubborn would pop up in the top 10 (though he might disguise it by using a clever word like determined......Audrey speak for possessed).

It's not that I mean to be stubborn. It's rather that I have this thing about wanting to do everything and if I get something in my head that I want to do and think I can do it, come hell or high water, I'm going to do it.

I am also blessed with this wonderfully loving husband who has watched me mostly succeed but occasionally fail at things. It's a mixed bag. Sometimes he thinks I might fail and I don't....but then sometimes he thinks my brainiac idea is full of hot air but he still lets me decide that on my own. And he usually reaps the benefits of a very good laugh at my expense.

He is the kind of man who might shake his head at my ideas but lets me go about trying things anyway. No matter if I don't know how to do it exactly, he knows that I definitely am going to give it the 100% if not 1000% college try.

I have to believe that this all started with a Martha Stewart moment. It was in the very early 1980s. I'm not even sure if she was famous or on TV by this time but this whole crazy project smacks of her when I think back on it!

All I remember is that in one of my rare moments of ‘inactivity’ between working full time at the local hospital until 11:00 p.m. and raising our 3 kids, being involved in every activity known to man, woman and child, making everything from scratch, and managing 4 dogs (you are getting the picture, eh - lunatic)...I liked to dabble in crafts.

I claimed that working on crafts relaxed me. However, sometimes in the aftermath of my 'relaxation' I had to wonder. Should there really be an aftermath for relaxation? Yikes!

Anyhow, I saw this program on TV about making Christmas landscape reindeer from nothing but chicken wire. This was of course before lawn ornaments were popular and you could buy them anywhere complete with lights.

This woman on the show made it look so easy! I dutifully watched the program and jotted down all the pertinent info (except obviously the burning question.....are you insane?) and formulated my plan.

I usually got home around 11:15 at night from my day job, and the kids were always in bed. I couldn't just jump into bed after being up and going since 6:00 a.m. so I usually had about an hour to spare while I soaked in the tub, maybe had a glass of wine and then went to bed to prepare for the next day. I generally always had things done before I ever left for work like cooking, cleaning, saving the dog world, etc. (ha ha) so that nighttime hour was all mine.

Bob would most often go to bed or at least fall asleep on the couch waiting for me.  He had to get up at 5:00 to get to his job but he always wanted to know I got home safely. 

I'd been planning this though and I knew what I needed and what I was going to do. I figured that in that one hour I'd hammer out a lawn sculpture and everyone would be SO pleased and surprised that they'd want more!

So a day before, I gave Bob my list from what I'd jotted down. I needed this amount of chicken wire, wire cutters, pieces of wire to hold the cut pieces together, some cardboard, and a glass of wine.....the wine was of course essential.

Other than that, I had it made! When I told him about my proposed project, he looked skeptical. "You're going to do WHAT?" he asked. "Do we really NEED this on the lawn?"

This from Tim the Toolman who had more lights on our house than half the city had combined. In fact our driveway could have been mistaken for the runway it was so lit up with red lights! This is the same guy who spent most of the Christmas season trying to replace bulbs on the top of the house and spent the rest of his time trying to keep the blasted things lit. (I rest my case!)

Hands on hips I looked at him. "So let me get this straight....you're giving me crap about MY creation for Christmas?"

That did it. He can deny me nothing pretty much. I have to give him credit.  He probably already knew what was going to happen but like the gentle man that he is, he let it go. He had all my supplies waiting for me in the dining room when I got home as requested, including my glass of wine and just kissed me, wished me luck, and headed off to bed.

So....on create-the-lawn-ornament night, I arrive home, albeit a little tired but hey...I'm woman, hear me roar and all that bull. I get my glass of wine, and turn on late night TV and set about my creative moment.

Okay. So I wasn't the brightest bulb in the toolbox. Who knew that short shag carpet and chicken wire would not 'mesh' so to speak. I laid out the chicken wire very carefully on the living room floor only to discover that it was snagged in about 15 places in the shag carpet. Not off to a great start, Audrey!

I very gently ripped it loose (like 40 times), took a sip of my wine and began cutting with the wire cutters. Unfortunately, I had not bargained on another fact about chicken wire which is its 'curliness'.  After I'd cut it and began trying to shape the blasted thing into the shape of a deer, I now had all these jagged edges. And miracle of miracles, they TOO are snagging in the shag carpeting.

But that's not ALL the chicken wire is doing. It's curling up and scratching my entire body! On one particular cut with the wire cutters, the chicken wire flips up and hits me in the side of the face, leaving a lovely pencil thin scratch down my entire cheek. Now how the heck am I going to explain THAT at work tomorrow? I break free of the possessed chicken wire, jump up and run to the bathroom to check in the mirror. Sure enough, it broke the skin and I have a nice cut down my cheek. I guess I'll tell them Bob got frisky? Yikes!

I run back out to the mess of chicken wire and proceed to jump into the center of it, gaining myself more scratches as the parts that are not now embedded in the shag carpet curl up around me as if to give me a cutting embrace. I am now starting to have little cuts and scratches all over every exposed part of myself. It is only half an hour into the ordeal and I have enough cuts and scratches to cover 3 people!

I'm laying on the chickenwire and trying to bend it to my will literally but it is having NONE of this. Where is the easy part of this process? What was that insane woman on TV talking about? Indeed.....you can make your own yard landscape animals? On what planet? Has she ever even worked with chicken wire with a mind of its own?  There was no mention of wrestling and body slamming with chicken wire!

We must have crazy chicken wire at the hardware store where Bob bought this because I can't get control of this stuff no matter what I try. I pin it down with one leg and one arm, only to have it unhook itself from the shag carpet and come up and poke me in the behind and in the head.

After about an hour of this insanity and looking like I've been in a fight with like 50 chickens, I am so ticked off, I decide the hell with it. I'm not doing this (Do ya think, Einstein?). I decide that chicken wire and me do not have a future together and valiantly admitting defeat, set about trying to get it gathered up so I can clean up this mess (then clean up ME....the other mess) and slink into bed before Bob sees me.

Unfortunately, every blasted tentacle from the chicken wire is now caught it seems in the shag carpeting. It took me forever to cut it loose (worrying all the while that when I look the next day there will be huge holes in the carpeting).

The blasted chickenwire is still 'hugging me' and I want to scream "get off me man"......I want to scream period. I want to call for help but it's late and this chicken wire nightmare is after all of my own making.

Finally, with scratches on my face, my neck, my ears, INSIDE my ears, my arms and my legs, with snags in my pants for good measure, I finally am able to gather up the chicken wire and I do the most mature thing I know how to do....I open the dining room door, step out on the deck and throw the chicken wire to its death on the patio below. I even flip it off for good measure!

Dusting my hands, I gather up the tools, set them quietly on the kitchen counter for Bob to return to their rightful place away from me, down the last dregs of my wine and go to bed.

The next morning as I stagger from bed after having nightmares of chicken wire entangling me and making ME into a lawn sculpture, Bob stands grinning at the coffee pot and hands me a cup of sheer heaven. "I like the look....what is that new makeup style you're wearing, chicken wire?"

I think I muttered something like "bite me". Okay, not mature but hey, I had chicken wire scratches from head to toe and instead of wrestling with him and having some fun, I spent an hour on the floor with shag carpeting and chicken wire. I was entitled to be ticked.

Not enough eh? He had to say it. "Oh and Audrey, by the way, lovely lawn ornament out there on the patio. I just wonder where we should put it for the most effect. Are you going to attach lights to it like you planned?" Again with the taunting. He's lucky I was too tired to dump my coffee over his head.

"Thanks so much for telling me about chicken wire properties though Bob. Like I would know that it would be like wrestling an octopus with 1000 tiny blades" I retorted as I headed off to the shower where I cursed and shrieked every time the water hit my scratches.

Moral of this story.....everything that looks easy isn't necessarily so. I think that's when I started to hate Martha Stewart and all these other 'project people' who stand there on TV telling us how easy these projects are and how we can do these things.

Of course, Audrey....blame it on someone else when in fact if you had half a brain, you might have thought it through or at least not tried working with chicken wire on shag carpet, eh?

I still get a little lightheaded when I see chicken wire to be honest. I think it's a very dangerous piece of equipment and it should be kept behind bars!

It should at least have a warning label on it that once unfurled, it can attack randomly and cut you to ribbons!

And I have yet to buy one Christmas lawn ornament. There are just some things that are better forgotten about entirely!