Shocking!

To offer a cliche, when it rains it pours.  After spending most of a day staring at totes and boxes filled with Christmas decorations.  I unplugged the lights on the naked tree and went to bed. The next morning I went to the dark utility room to fill the dogs dish. The light switch did not respond with illumination.  Backing into the kitchen and flipping switches revealed the overhead lights and the pantry light were dead.  Thinking circuit breakers were probably to blame, I whined to Ol' Abner as he was testing his sleeping chair fully clothed. (This tactic made perfect sense because I was barefoot wearing pajamas).  He re-flipped the switches and a few others. Some lights and electrical appliances were fully functional while others that seemed to be on the same circuit were powerless.  After making the usual rounds and flipping circuit breakers, he pulled out his handy tester thingy and went around the house beeping and chirping.   He finally concluded that the light fixture in the pantry was mal-functioning and had shorted out the rest of the lights as well as the plug for the cable box.  The last plug made the situation urgent. Football games must be watched in real time.   A trip to the hardware store, after opening the garage door by hand, and the light fixture was replaced but power to it was not!  In the midst of his storm of activity, I was carefully finishing the tree decorating and Papa sat quietly in his chair, commenting from time to time that electricity was something he didn't have as he grew up.

A heavy duty electric extension cord from the dining room revived the dormant cable box and television.  The mantle and tree are adorned.  Old world Santas and reindeer reside in the kitchen and the stockings are ready for filling.  That's about as much as I plan to do this year. The electrician came today.  A wire had been crossed at some point in the past and a switch designed to turn a light and ceiling fan on independently had been combined, for unknown reasons.  He corrected the installation and voila, everything worked perfectly again with the bonus that I can turn on the ceiling fan and light in the living room with two different switches!