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Have a scary little Christmas

We don’t have a basement. We have a scary-basement. This distinction must be honored. On our first day in our home, there was a 6-foot snake hanging out down there. Since then, it has been home to fellow snake friends, mice, spiders, frogs and the occasional opossum.

The garage door, which goes directly into this unfinished basement does not fully close, and holes around the piping and venting make an easy-access highway for all the creepy-crawlies. If we didn’t have a very secure, heavy and deadbolted door leading to the basement, I might never sleep.

The scary-basement has only been made worse by us. Never wanting to spend much time in the scary-basement, we have made it a dumping ground for all things unused, outgrown or still packed from our cross-country move two years ago. The floor has become an obstacle course, a hazard in its own right. That only makes the scary-basement feel scarier, as you never know what may be lurking beneath every precariously placed bag or box.

There are only two occasions that make me spend significant time in the scary-basement. The first is during our tornado warnings, during which the added darkness, the fear of death and, possibly worse, the fear that the tornado will whip those otherwise hiding snakes into my face at 140 miles per hour always make me consider robbing a bank so I can drop a hundred grand on finishing the basement.

The second is during Christmas.

As the song goes, it’s the most wonderful fright of the year.

The scary-basement is where I store all the gifts that don’t contain food, because, you know, opossums like gummy dinosaurs, too. It’s where I wrap the presents. And most importantly, it’s where I store the Christmas decorations. And by “store the Christmas decorations,” I mean “keep the Christmas decorations strewn about, in no particular place or organized order, because I’m running back upstairs before one of the many spiders descends from its web to eat my face.”

That is the problem of a scary-basement. There is never order because you are so busy attempting to quickly exit the scary-basement that items fall wherever there is space — an act that comes back to bite you in the face when you need to find said strewn items.

This past weekend, the kids and I decorated for Christmas. I spent copious time swatting away cobwebs and jumping backward, turning over and stepping into open boxes. Nothing gets you into the holiday spirit quite like cursing up a storm to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” My scary-basement venture was only moderately successful. I found the fake Christmas tree, and after a thorough inspection through the lifelike limbs for reptiles, my husband and I carried it upstairs and successfully set it up. I also found a stuffed reindeer, a snow globe and the blowup Santa for the front yard. Still missing are the Christmas stockings, ornaments and boxes stuffed with enough decor to light up a small country.

I told my children I would not be going down to the scary-basement again — not this weekend, anyway. One’s heart deserves a break after experiencing such trauma. I thought they would pitch a fit, but in scarcity came creativity. They opted to get crafty with paper, scissors, stickers and paint. Every “ornament” on our tree was created by their handiwork, and it is by far the most rocking tree I have ever seen, complete with about 500 dragons and a handful of Mickey Mouses. We have hung winter hats over the mantel, perfectly acceptable receptacles for Santa’s smaller presents. And we have replaced the fake snow and snowmen decor with fake spiderwebs from Halloween and bunnies from Easter.

During my harrowing scary-basement plunge to aggregate Christmas splendor, I found plenty of holiday items — just not all pertaining to Dec. 25. It was my children’s idea — one that makes perfect sense, by my standards. We have always been a dual-holiday home this time of year anyway. With my being Jewish, we’ve always had menorah candles alongside the Christmas lights burning brightly in our home. What does adding a few Independence Day American flags and St. Patrick’s day clovers hurt — especially if it keeps me from returning to the scary-basement?

We are most certainly decked out for the holidays — emphasis on the plural “s.” Perhaps this year, I’ll ask Santa for some scary-basement shelves.

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Katiedid Langrock is author of the book “Stop Farting in the Pyramids,” available at http://www.creators.com/books/stop-farting-in-the-pyramids.

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