Her fabulous electric glory

By Marc Robertson - Editor | November 29, 2023

At some point in the whole Messiah-birthing affair and the impromptu party that followed, featuring only three slightly clever chaps and some shepherds with a paucity of sheep, it may have occurred to someone that there weren’t any flamingos at the nativity.
And yet there she was every year: Ethel.
“But, Dad, aren’t all animals made by God?”
“Well, yes, I suppose they are.”
“So the flamingos would have come to see the baby Jesus.”
“Honestly, I don’t know if flamingos lived in the Middle East.”
“Were they all dead, then? Did people eat them all?”
“What? No.”
“So can we decorate Ethel for Christmas again, Dad?”
“Do I have a choice here?”
“Mom already said it was okay.”
Made of wire and somewhat larger than a real flamingo (for reasons never explained to me), Ethel was tall and proud and see-through and a bit wobbly and thankfully single.
I don’t know where we might have stored a second flamingo for the other eleven months of the year. The corner of the shed was already full of Ethel.
But there, dusted off and wiped of cobwebs she would be, every Christmas season, taking pride of place in the middle of the front lawn, draped in colored lights, flashing on and off through the night to guide the shepherds or the wise men or whoever else thought they’d come to the birth of Jesus Christ.
I’d like to make it clear here that Christ wasn’t actually born on my front lawn, and not just because I live in Cotulla, but that holiday decorations often include a nativity scene or at the very least a star or an angel or something that reminds us why we go to all this trouble.
Over time, the children’s holiday lighting in front of the house became ever more creative and eventually stretched to one or more of our cars and, of course, Ethel.
One year, the entire hedgerow across the front of the house was transformed into a massive glittery Wiener dog whose abdomen was the only part that flashed and made him look alternately quite fat and then suddenly as though sawn in half by a magician.
I was happy to let the boys drag the strings of light all over the lawn, duct-tape everything down as though bracing for Armageddon, and put whatever they wanted out there to celebrate the special holiday. After all, it’s to do with children, isn’t it? The young feel a special connection with the infant Messiah, and it’s because of them that we enjoy all the sparkle and twinkle.
Dressing Ethel in all her fabulous electric glory every December meant that Christmas was nigh and that the baby Jesus would be smiling down on all the glee, the genuine joy, shared by all the little children who welcomed him to Earth.
That’s what Ethel meant to us.
I’d arrive home late from a long day at work in the chilly winter night and there she would be, legs akimbo, flashing on the lawn to guide me up the path and remind me of the reason for the season.
Well, the years went by too quickly it seems, the boys grew up and left, the cars were sold off one by one, and Ethel started to rust. At first, she lost a foot, and then another, and then one of her knees went out. After that, her head fell off, and then she just looked like a portly stump. Eventually, of course, dressing her in lights was more triage than decoration, and then all hope was lost.
Ethel had returned to the soil whence she had sprung, if that’s what wire flamingos do.
But the thought of her remains. The memories of Christmases past, of the happiness in the children’s faces when they presented their finished display and danced in the colored flashes on the dewy grass and reveled in the light show that they’d made to welcome Jesus; all these things stay with us over the years. The front lawn may be empty now, and there’s no chitter-chatter in the shadows while someone waits to surprise Dad on a winter’s night, but in my mind she’s there even now, one leg in the air, baubles and brilliance all around, and I can smile at knowing the joy never really fades.
And you know that Jesus loved her, too.