Oilpressure

By Susan Phillips

There are two times of the year that my husband gets obnoxiously excited about: the month of May and the Christmas season. I could certainly throw in football season, but that’s much more than a time of year. It’s half a year.

George pretty much puts everything on hold during May. He does the bare minimum on the yard and other chores around the house. I’m not sure how much productivity his employer gets out of him in May either. I know a few years ago, he had a work-related project due in May and he busted his tail to finish it in April, just so he could focus on Indy during May.

He puts just as much energy into Christmas. He loves it. I never had a tree up in November until he and I got married. Now it’s up and decorated by the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I was out on the road last week. When I got back, the whole den was decorated along with the lights on the outside of the house. And by now, I’m already sick of the Christmas music in our house. He has something like 400 selections of Christmas music on his phone. He listens to it all day at work, in the car and then brings it home for more. It’s too much. George is not quite Clark Griswold, but he’s close.

He speaks very highly of his childhood Christmases, almost as if they were something out of Norman Rockwell. My memories of Christmas as a child are not so pleasant. My stepfather made sure that we remembered Christmas for the wrong reasons. The thought of Christmas brings nothing but a flood of bad memories for me as a child. As a mom, I enjoyed Christmas because my kids did. My previous husband didn’t dread it like I did, he just never really gave it much thought. Now that George and I have been together for many Christmases, I’ll admit it’s been different being with someone who gets so excited over Christmas but I’m starting to get used to it.

This weekend will be a double-dose of George’s two annual passions. Tomorrow (Saturday), we are going up to Indianapolis for the weekend. We will do what we do anytime we are in town. We will go to the track and the gift shop. We will also eat dinner at Dawson’s on Main in Speedway, breakfast at Charlie Brown’s and work in our usual trips to the Mug-n-Bun and Long’s Donuts. But Saturday night is the real reason we are going. We want to see Lights at the Brickyard, the display of Christmas lights spread out over IMS. They claim there are over 2.5 million lights, so it should/could be interesting.

Before everyone starts thinking that George is a self-centered A-hole (well he is but not this time), this was my idea and not his.

When I first saw when they did this last year, I thought this would be something he would like. It combines his two favorite things, Christmas and Indy. But we couldn’t get up there last year in December and I wasn’t sure how good it was. But we heard from several friends that had been and said it was worth it.

Of course when I suggested it several weeks ago, he wanted to go Thanksgiving weekend. Why? Because the Titans were playing the Colts that Sunday in Indy. I nixed that idea. That was just way too much over Thanksgiving weekend, but he could’ve worked in all three in one weekend even though it would have probably worn us out.

Not only is George excited to be going to the place he loves, but it will be decked out for the festive time of year he loves. But what is he most excited about? He gets to drive his own car down the main part of IMS across the yard of bricks at night. If that’s not unique enough, they’re calling for a slight chance of snow in Indy Saturday night. That could be a surreal experience with snow on the track.

George will have pictures on here Monday of the Lights at the Brickyard display. I hope we have as much fun as I think we will. At least I know one thing. George will, no matter what.

This entry was posted on December 8, 2017 at 4:05 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.