Pre-lit no more

Posted November 26th, 2007 by Mom |

When we purchased our current home 5.5 years ago, at Christmas time we realized that our little 6 foot tree looked pretty sad in front of our picture window in the dining room, especially considering we have 11 foot ceilings downstairs. Therefore, we purchased a beautiful, (artificial of course) pre-lit 9 foot Scottsdale Pine Tree.

The lights were great the first 2 years. Then the 3rd year I noticed a limb that wasn’t lit (Naturally, the lights were only warranted for 2 years!) and ignored it since it was a lower limb. Last year a couple of limbs were out, and I knew that I needed to find the problem, but with a 2 year old, it wasn’t a high priority. This year, we got the tree assembled and plugged it in. Only about 1/6 of the tree was lit. It was a big problem. B went to the store and purchased a bulb/fuse tester and we determined that the fuses were good, lots of bulbs were bad and other bulbs tested that “something else is wrong.” Whatever that means.

Anyway, between B and myself we went to over a dozen stores this weekend looking for bulbs to fit our tree. No luck. Tonight we then tried leaving the tree turned off and put strands of lights on the tree. This worked better, but still one strand (I didn’t test them all, since I had a 5 year old and a 3 year old eager to see the lights on the tree) that didn’t light up in the center of the strand.

We put the kids to bed once they saw lights on the tree and then B found the light that was out on the strand and replaced it with a good bulb. He went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and then came back to a tree that was completely dark. UGH!!!!!!

At this point, I asked B, “Maybe God doesn’t want us to have lights this year?!”

After a brief discussion, B went to the garage and brought us each a pair of snipper pliers and we went to cutting all the light bulbs and wires out of the tree. This only took us about 2 hours, and we haven’t tackled the lights at the top of the tree. That will either require a ladder or we can cut those lights out after the tree is disassembled.

Therefore, if anyone needs several thousand spare light bulbs for their Christmas tree, come and get then, just make sure you are here before our trash day this Tuesday!

Tomorrow B said that we are going to get some high quality lights that stay lit even when one light is bad. I asked him if he wanted clear lights or colored lights (the pre-lit lights on the tree were clear) and B responded, “I don’t care, your call.” I think he was a little frustrated at this point!

I had already told him that I didn’t want to put lights outside this year since I am always the one to put them out and then clean up after Christmas. B told me that J had already been talking about the Christmas lights. I found this out when I put him in bed. I left him laying in bed looking out his window at the Christmas lights on a house across the street.

After this ordeal with the lights on the Christmas tree (that is inside our warm house), thinking about taking as much time, if not more time, putting lights outside (in the cold) makes me cringe. I will just have to see the pleading look in J’s eyes and I’m sure the lights will be outside our home very soon.