When I was a kid, my Dad would always 'recruit' my brother and me to help install Christmas lights on the house. I swear he would get us up before daylight and have us out there on ladders until sunset. He had the lights all packed in sequence so they would come out of storage in order. The ends were labeled, so we knew which end of the house to start so they would come out right. He had a special wiring harness made to accept the multiple strands, intersecting just above the power outlet. And, finally, he had custom made brackets to attach the lights to the roof without harming the shingles or facia board. And it still took us all day.
Now, my Dad is a retired rocket scientist. Seriously. He was an aerospace engineer during many of the moon shots. One of the reasons they made it all the way to the moon and back is because of guys like my Dad who paid attention to detail. However, this is hanging Christmas lights on a house, a mere 9 feet above the surface of the Earth.
So, now that I have a house of my own to hang lights on, I choose to take a slightly simpler route. I get up about... 10:30, have a long breakfast with my wife, surf the web, check my email, take my mid morning nap. Then I get my one string of lights out, and my custom made roof brackets, and flail away at my yearly Christmas spirit chore. Total time: 45 minutes. And it seems to work out just fine.
Oh! And taking them down is a breeze. I don't even get back on the roof! Just grab one end and yank... and then spend the next twenty minutes looking for 'custom brackets' in the grass.
But then, if I were working at NASA, those astronauts would probably be a lot more nervous about crawling into that rocket ship than they were back when my dad was in charge.
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