It amazes me sometimes, the things that come to mind once the exterior of our home is festooned with Christmas lights and the darkness of dusk allows them to glow.

There’s just something about Christmas, even with all of its commercialization. If we shake all of that off, we’re left with the complicated simplicity of what it should be.

The hustle and bustle of Christmas can feel like a snowball rolling down the mountain, getting bigger and bigger, with no way of stopping it. I feel like my soul really needs those moments of quiet peace that the glow of Christmas lights brings me.

Hustle and bustle anxiety is an unattractive several-headed beast.

This past Christmas, I was interested in the things I heard while listening to a favorite radio station in the weeks before Christmas. They asked listeners to send them messages about their favorite Christmas memories. Hardly anyone talked about Christmas memories they had as adults, but almost everyone shared stories of when they were children, doing simple things — like waking up on Christmas morning and having cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa, or playing board games with grandma and grandpa, gathering around the tree, or smelling the special once-a-year aromas of Christmas coming from grandma’s kitchen.

One young lady even went so far as to say, “I don’t remember the presents I got as a kid, but I remember time spent with my family at Christmas.”

It cemented in my mind the gravity of Christmas when human beings are children. There is wonder, there is magic — created by adults for children. And as adults, I wonder if we understand the profound degree to which Christmas matters — and is etched into the minds of — children, to remain with them for all of their lives. It’s a tremendous responsibility for adults.

While decorating our tree this year, I also decided there are things we can learn from it:

n No matter if we are tall and thin or short and round, we are all beautiful to someone.

n Others may live in darkness, but our lights can lift them up, simply by their presence.

n Everyone has an opinion of a Christmas tree, but the tree doesn’t care; it just stands tall, unapologetic for its imperfections.

n Whether we twinkle or shine boldly steady, someone needs that kind of light.

My last Christmas observation is one that (just this year) created a new page in the annals of my halls of holiday catastrophes.

In a year when we figured we better get the lights hung on the outside of the house before it became too late to fool with it, I took my place in the skid loader and my husband took his place on the work platform mounted on the brackets of the skid loader. It was cold; after all the warm weather we had in the weeks before Christmas, it would be our signature style to wait until we couldn’t feel our fingertips while performing this menial holiday task.

Things began to take an unfortunate turn when he signaled me to lift the bucket, and when I could not see the eave of the house with him standing in my line of view, I knew something dreadful happened when he began to yell and wave his arms.

I had lifted the platform too high and smashed the top of it into the eave, creating a brand-new reason for the whiskey bottle to come out of hiding.

A short while later while backing up, I looked responsibly behind me often to make sure I missed the grill, which was already in questionable shape from the ferocious and sustained Iowa winds we experienced this past spring and summer, which knocked it over more than once.

As I was slowly backing up and watching my husband for directions, we heard a loud crash. The grill was laid over again. I had watched other things as I backed up, but not the width of the platform and whatever stood in its path.

The grill may have defiantly given its life in exchange for this ill-timed holiday ritual.

My husband was annoyed, which only served to remind me that it may actually be true that husbands and wives should neither hang Christmas lights nor work on taxes together.

If you see our home festooned with exterior lights next Christmas, you might want to find out if both of us are still inhabiting the home.

Chances are, we might be filing taxes separately.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net.