Let There Be Light

Across the Fence #316

Let there be Christmas lights. I can’t believe I’m the only person who has problems with those strings of Christmas lights. Tell me I’m not alone.

It never fails. I get the box out of the basement, where I had neatly packed the lights after using them last year, and as soon as I take them out of the box, they become all tangled up. I don’t understand it. There must be a “Nisse” living in our basement. They love to create all kinds of mischief if you don’t feed them on Christmas Eve. They usually live in barns, but the old barn on the farm was torn down a couple years ago, and I suspect the little bugger decided to hide out in our basement. He’s probably a long ago stowaway on a ship my ancestors came from Norway on. This Nisse is either really old, or a descendent of the original Nisse.

But here I am talking about Nisser (that’s plural) and many of you probably aren’t aware of them. How rude of me. You may not even believe they exist.

There are several types of Nisser in Norway. The best known is the “Fjøsnisse” which is a Nisse who takes care of the animals on the farms. He’s very short and often bearded and lives in a barn or stable. He wears clothes of wool and often has a red knitted hat. You should always give him a large portion of rommegrot on Christmas Eve if you want to keep him friendly toward everyone that lives on the farm. It’s important that you leave a bowl of rommegrot for the Nisse, who – according to superstition – is the protector of the farm. If you don’t leave some rommegrot for the Nisse, he may play tricks on you. Sometimes he scares people by blowing out the lights in the barn or scares the farm dog at night. He might move the animals around in the barn, braid the horses’ mane, or tie their tails together, and other tricks like that.

There’s an interesting story about one of my ancestral farms in Norway. This story is told in the Lund History book about the Ege farm.

In 1750, all the buildings on the farm burned down. There was a Nisse who lived on the Ege farm. He had lived there for a long time. The Nisse became completely impossible, and it was hard to live with him. My ancestors on the farm decided that they had to chase the Nisse away, and he fled from the farm as fast as his little legs could carry him. To properly scare him, they followed him and shot their guns after him. After he was gone from the farm he became nasty and returned to the Ege farm, and burned all the buildings down! Perhaps my ancestors on the farm, neglected to put the rommegrot out in the barn for the Nisse one Christmas and that started all the problems! If that doesn’t prove to you that the mischievous Nisse is real, I don’t know what will convince you. Now, I will admit, my ancestors probably had a bit too much Christmas beer to drink before they saw him and started chasing after the Nisse and shooting at him.

Enough about history, lets get back to the problem at hand. I think he’s also been tangling up and unscrewing my Christmas lights because I’ve never left any rommegrot for him.

I finally got all the lights untangled. There’s no use spending a lot of time putting a bunch of dead lights up, so I tested them first. They lit up. It was very cold outside. I could barely feel my fingers by the time I got the lights strung. Then I plugged them in to admire my lights and nothing happened. I discovered I’d forgotten to flip the switch inside. I flipped the switch and only half the lights lit up, even though they’d all worked a half hour earlier. After trying to find where the problem was, I finally gave up and bought new lights.

Good Lord, those old lights couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. I’d used them when we lived in Madison. Granted, I had spliced some wires back together that became frayed and broken in the wind, and had wound electrical tape over the splices, but they worked. Not that I’m cheap, but doesn’t anything last any more?

You’re probably saying, “That’s dangerous. He should have thrown the old ones away long ago.” You’re right, but how many of you have strung five or six strings of lights together, even though it says do not connect more than three? Also, how many of you use proper ladder safety etiquette while putting up the lights? I used to put an old rickety stepladder on top of an old wobbly picnic table in order to string our lights in Madison. I’m more careful now that I’m older. I don’t bounce as good.

Despite our problems with the Nisse tangling the lights and somehow making half of them not work, we now have new lights outside and they all work. We still need to put up our tree, so that could be another tangled lights adventure. Let’s hope the Nisse hasn’t messed with those lights.