One of the many entertaining things about having teenage boys around the house is the surprise of watching them co-opt the household's holiday decorating scheme. To tell the truth, I am not myself much of a decorator, having an allergy to cute, which in any case doesn't really complement a hut full of books and shabby secondhand furniture. So it doesn't break my heart to relinquish the Christmas task to the boys. But even if relinquishing did matter to me, I'd be helpless.

Take yesterday, for instance: James informed me that we would need more tree lights because most of our old strings had died last year. So I came home from my errandy afternoon with two hundred little colored lights and a garish twelve-foot stretch of shiny red tinsel garland that Paul had decided would make Christmas with his grandparents even more special. I stacked the light boxes on top of the piano, looped the garland over a nail, and turned my thoughts to dinner.

Then James breezed in off the school bus. Within seconds of his arrival he had tied one end of the garland to the ceiling fan, the other to the track lighting; then he unpacked the lights and draped them rakishly across the ceiling, looped them up and down walls, whisked them behind the stereo speakers, clothes-pinned them to a drying rack over the wood stove, and finally snaked them around the corner of the stairs and tied them to the banister. The entire arrangement took about two minutes to complete, and the effect was startling.

"Is this temporary?" I asked.

"No," he said. "We need more. And more of that garland too. In all the colors you can find."

Tom walked into the room and immediately tangled his head in the low-slung lights. "This must change," he said.

"Wrong," said James, who was now on the couch, lying on his stomach and playing Suduko on his iPod.

"What happens if I turn on the fan?" asked Paul.

"Ack! Don't!" I cried, hiding my eyes in my hands.

Sniggering ensued.

Eventually, because he really is a good-hearted boy, James relented and untangled his father's head. Otherwise, everything remains exactly as he "designed" it. No doubt, however, someone will turn on the ceiling fan later today.

Dinner tonight: beef carbonnade and I'm hoping Paul will make noodles to go with the stew, a skill that Tom taught him a couple of week ago. And maybe we'll also have cole slaw with the last of my stored garden cabbage. Or maybe chard from the freezer. Or maybe pureed pumpkin with garlic and roasted red onions.