My Christmas Lights

I have a small Christmas tree - one of those three foot table trees - and I love it. It’s a pre-lit tree although all those lights are dead so I just string regular lights on it now.

Before this tree, I had a regular-sized artificial pre-lit tree and I think it had four sections. The cords for the lights on that tree were tagged “A, B, C” etc. supposedly to help you figure out in what order to plug them in so at the bottom, the main plug would light every string. Do you think I could figure it out? There were two plugs near each other on every section. I would try every combination I could think of and invariably, one string would remain unlit. I would utter very un-Christmas-like words while trying to light that darn tree.

One Christmas when my son was home for the holidays, I asked him if he could try to figure it out. I had given up and there was still one section of the tree that was unlit toward the top. I figured since he is a computer engineer and extremely left-brained, he would be able to get all the correct plugs in the correct sockets. It even took HIM half an hour to figure it out. A friend of mine had the same tree and she said she would also regularly curse at it when trying to get it lit.

The last year I owned that tree, before the branches started falling out, I made sure to have one regular string of lights I could use to fill in the gap - I finally gave up trying to get the entire thing lit. Now, I just string a couple of regular light strings on this little one. The heck with the ones that are stuck to the tree.

Now I also have, on the opposite side of my living room, a wood platform and a wood stove. I don’t use the wood stove, so I have a string of colored lights wound around the stove pipe in a spiral. I have another string under the lip of the platform draped like garland all along the base. I have that string secured with clear packing tape so you can’t see the tape from a distance. I have used relatively long strips of tape, but do you think I can get this stupid string to stick? Every morning, I have to re-stick one section or another back to the hearth because it has fallen down onto the carpet. I don’t want to put tacks in that platform, that would leave holes, so I’m stuck (pun intended) with the packing tape. This morning, I gave each sticking point another dose of tape. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Have a wonderful holiday and my your lights always be lit!