I�m willing to concede that Christmas is a pretty feminine holiday.

It sparkles. It glitters. It smells good. The celebrations focus on the domestic. We women make you guys wear cheesy Christmas sweaters and there are no football games to watch.

We torture you with shopping--which comes from the Latin root, "to emasculate"--and subject you to girly yuletide rituals such as mistletoe, caroling, and fruit cake. About the only time we allow your alpha male tendencies to show during the month of December is when we ask you to put something together or hang the outside Christmas lights. I realize this is little consolation to your instincts.

In honor of this 13th Day of Christmas--the Kilowatts A Soarin�--I have learned to acquiesce all feminist thought, and revert to a 1950�s housewife nibbling on pot brownies. Over the years I have learned that this is not only the only way to survive this day, but it is my humble gift to my husband.

Earlier this week, without complaint or questioning his electrical authority, I purchased this year�s light inventory. He said 200 feet, I bought 225. I bought extension cords. Really ugly, thick ones that didn�t match the paint color of the house. I figured that was good criteria to go by. He looked at my purchases and shook his head wistfully like he does when the kids attempt a grown-up task but fail miserably with their naivet�. As if I was doing our taxes in crayon. He appreciates the big-girl effort, but he�s going to re-copy it before anyone important sees it. He went to the hardware store and doubled my efforts.

Meanwhile, the children and I waited patiently at home for the bucket truck that was scheduled to arrive. He told me that not only would this obscene equipment help him hang the lights properly, but he was going to trim the trees while he was hoisted 11 stories in the air. In the spirit of the "keep my mouth shut Lucy, you are not going to be in the show," theme of the day, I did not remind him that the term, "tree surgeon" suggested a modicum of skill was necessary, and there were no "tree butchers" listed in the phone book. No sir, I simply smiled with lipstick and readied the first-aid kit.

He called the boys out to "help" him. I went inside to fix sandwiches when I heard this introduction: "Boys, never marry a woman who likes Christmas." I knew only y-chromosomes were welcome at this point.

A short time later I wobbled out in high heels with a tray of cold drinks. My husband was asking my oldest son, "What does this sticker say on the top rung of the ladder, the trail of lights and my foot are blocking my view�Not�a�ste�?" I returned inside to bake or knit something.

Still later I checked on the man folk later to find my husband hanging precariously upside down from the roof with a staple gun. The boys were reciting the colorful new vocabulary their father was emitting through grit teeth. When I saw the power strip laying in the wet gutter, I went back into the house and started shopping online for BB guns and chewing tobacco.

A mere 8 hours had passed when we all stood in the street squinting at his merry and bright, bright, bright handiwork. Since last year, he added hockey player lawn ornaments, some candy cane rope lighting around the palm trees and a new Homer inflatable to keep the other Simpsons company. With an arm around me and a lead apron over the baby from being irradiated from the icicle lights, he whispered proudly, "I was wondering which way to go, gaudy or classy, and so I went with what I thought you'd appreciate most. It�s like freaking Norman Rockwell out here." Norman Lear, maybe. If I thought the male anatomy was equipped with tear ducts, I�d swear his eyes were glistening.

Knowing his day of masculine glory was drawing to a close, I praised him profusely and served him a plate of bacon before rushing us all inside to change to go to a holiday party in which he would be forced to wear reindeer socks.

He called from the shower over the hum of the hair dryer I was using. "You know, I had a little bit of trouble with the synchronization of the blinkers to, �Rockin� Around the Christmas Tree,� but I finally was able to--"

Suddenly, silence and darkness.

The power mysteriously shut down completely in the house.

"Oh yeah," he added through the running and increasingly tepid water, "You can�t blow dry your hair until January."

With no beauty appliances until after New Year�s, it may not be such a feminine holiday after all.

�2006 Tracey Henry

Divamail me this holiday season. Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com.