50 reasons why i hate Christmas lights

every year i am in charge of lighting the tree. i don’t quite remember how this started but i think it has something to do with me wanting to put up the Christmas tree before everyone else in my family. i guess it just happened by default (and because it would be 2 days before Christmas before our tree was decorated if we had to wait for mom to put the lights on. she dreads it). my obsessive compulsive nature tends to make the tree-lighting process more tedious than it normally would be. i cannot stand skipping any branches and it bothers me if the lights aren’t distributed evenly once the tree is lit. i might possibly be a little too martha stewart-y for my own good. i even went through a phase where i tried to “pre-light” our tree so that each section of the tree could come apart and we could leave the lights on year after year. that was a major fail. which leads me to the reason my whole pre-lighting the tree idea totally bombed…

the fact that one or more stands of lights that worked last year doesn’t work this year. this makes the tree lighting process become slow and painful. my division, wrapping, and storing of the lights in airtight bags never seems to preserve them. of the 6 strands i used last year, only 3.5 strands worked when i unwrapped them and did my initial test plug-in. those 3.5 strands only covered the bottom quarter of our tree (which a 12 foot tree).

so down to the drug store i went to buy more lights. i thought another 400 lights would do the tricks. after joyfully plugging in my new strands of lights and donning the tree with them i was disappointed annoyed frustrated filled with hatred toward the Christmas lights when they only covered another third of the tree. really? where did those 400 lights go? how much longer am i going to be standing on this ladder? i am starting to break a sweat. how many lights is this tree going to suck out of me? “MOOOMMMM, i’m going to the store again. i need more lights!!”

after another trip to the drug store, where i bought more lights than we could possibly need to finish lighting the tree and a few trips up and down the ladder, the tree was fully lit (with a whopping 1,350 lights) and ready to be decorated by the family.

you don’t even want to know what happened while i was lighting the back porch tree or trying to get my new strands of large bulb retro lights (passed down with love from my nana) to work. i finally understand why relient k named their Christmas album deck the hall, bruise your hands. although, in my case it was more like light the doorways, electrocute your hand. with the annoyance of lighting malfunctions and my poor mathematical estimations behind, the lights are up, the tree is decorated, and the back porch tree is ready and waiting for piper and haddy to come hang their ornaments.

every year i yell at the lights and every year i take way too many trips to the store. without fail, every year my scrooge-like attitude toward the lights disappears the moment i step back and see their glitter and the colored reflections of the glass ornaments twinkling around the walls and ceiling. i am reminded that Christmastime is the most wonderful time of the year and that a reason why i continue to light the tree year after year.

enjoy the lights this year, mom! if i have my own house by next Christmas, you’re on your own… (oh, did i mention nana is giving me her pre-lit tree for my new house?)