Snarled Strands
I live in a city. My living room would be quite comfortably sized, if it didn’t also serve as the dining room. So a five-foot tree is what my son and I have brought home. Out to the shelves of the garage I head, to retrieve last year’s bird’s nest of green wire and multi colored lights. I carefully unravel and drape the first 20-foot strand through the branches. I plug it into the cord (conveniently left behind the couch from last year).
Nada. I check all connections and shake my head. These aren’t those antiques that stop working if one lousy bulb goes out. I grab the second strand of the same make and plug it right into the wall. Dead as well. My $15 investment two years ago has apparently run its course. Somewhere in China, an engineer as been handsomely paid to figure out a way to build light strings that will self-destruct if not used for 300 straight days.
So I trod down the street to Walgreens. They have a whole row of holiday crap, and I quickly see a new brand, similar to the old ones. They advertise “new improved model” on the cover, so, naturally, I fall for it. In addition to the normal blinking variety, I am taken aback by these strings of lovely blue and white snowflakes sitting there. Each flake has five individual white LEDs in them. Multiple blinking settings. For another six bucks these babies are mine. The tree must not remain lightless for one more minute than necessary.
Wasteful Wrappings
I take five minutes to unravel 10 feet of permanently bent green wires from a plastic frame used for shipping. I can’t help but think that in the 40 years I have been purchasing Christmas lights, they have never come up with a better way to package them without all this wasted plastic. Being an LD with OCD traits, placing the bulbs upon a tree randomly is something that just cannot be done. I plug them in first this time and make several routes through the branches until I can stand back and be satisfied. I open up my new snowflake clusters. They have an equally strong plastic packaging that is childproof, so I’m not doing well. They seem to tangle with each other until I finally apply brute force and rip them apart. No doubt I have unlodged a few LEDs, but I’m okay with that. I apply them to the tree with a skillful eye. The blue is that beautiful dark color you get out of a VL3K. I do not have a proper ornament for the treetop. My four-year-old has deemed that his four-inch snowman should live there, and he’s holding his ground. Nothing I offer as a replacement is acceptable until I suggest that placing a star up there would be cool. He agrees, but only if I can find one that lights up. I have no time for the Internet, so that will have to be part of tomorrow’s outdoor lighting quest.
Back to the garage, I retrieve the decomposing cardboard box full of glass shards and assorted twinkly things. I pull out the hideous white snowflakes I bought to adorn my front gutter two years ago. Target special, got one year’s use out of them. Perhaps the indoor models shouldn’t be used outside my Minnesota home in the winter. In the trash they go, and I realize I need to augment my outdoor lighting inventory. Off I head, remembering that Home Depot goes bonkers on this stuff. I walk in with one thought. I’d like to see if I could buy something American-made. I walk the aisles and see four major brands hawking wide assortments of plastic-colored LED strings. I keep looking and quickly come to the realization that Christmas lights, as I have known them all my life, have vanished. Those oblong, constantly-needing-to-be-screwed-back-in bulbs are history. They don’t even sell replacement bulbs for the ones I own anymore. Okay, LEDs are better for everyone, so I start looking at the manufacturers. Every single product is made in China. I glance sideways and see a gigantic GE display of white LED lit icicles, quilted patterns for my shrubs and a frickin’ reindeer, if I wanted. Chinese. I see light boxes of products called Synchro Lights. These are not from Texas. But my eyes suddenly perk up. There before me is a 100-foot spool of LED bulbs covered in colored shells, evenly spaced 1 foot apart. I claim them, and then look up to see a lit star staring me in the face. I nab one and I’m gone.
Mashed on the Spool
Thankfully there is no snow yet, and it’s bright out as I start unrolling the spool across the frozen front yard. I believe they have finally figured out a proper way to package these lights, and I’m feeling good. It’s not until I get halfway unraveled that I realize I have been duped again. Somehow, the last 40 feet of lights were mashed down so tight that they overlapped and became very tedious to get apart. Of course, untangling them with gloves on is not an option, and I’m approaching frostbite. As I tear my fingers to frozen shreds, it dawns on me that I will never use this spool again. The plastic recycle Gods have won again. I line my stepladder above the first window and easily apply many plastic gutter clips every yard and string my new LED fixtures across 100 feet of gutter. I turn them on, and I notice a glow. On to my old outdoor lights. These pull straight out of the box easily. Only two broken in storage this year — good ratio. I whip out my staple gun and quickly attach them to my flower boxes, roadie-style. In mere seconds, I have boxed the front windows and replaced the broken bulbs with the last existing spares on earth. I plug them in and, voila; they look good, even in the daylight.
It’s then that I look up at my $30 spool of multicolored LED lights and realize I have failed. I never bothered to see what wattage these were, but they certainly cannot hold a candle (pun intended) to the old incandescent bulbs. In my mind I had envisioned bright new technology. Of all people, I should have known better. I head inside and wait for darkness; to better view my lame attempt at holiday lighting. As I’m writing this, I hear a pop and look over as one of the overhead halogen bulbs in my lovely dining area has exploded. These little 15-watt stealth bulbs are fabulous light sources. But the fact is, each time I blow one, it costs me 15 clams to replace. Just goes to show that my research skills on household lighting fixtures were no better than my choice in holiday lights.
