Christmas tree...and lights

You might remember my somewhat paranoid, conspiracy-theoryesque post from last December about replacing the lights on a pre-lit tree. After much pain, time and grousing, we bought 600 new lights last year to adorn our formerly pre-lit artificial Christmas tree.

At the end of last year's holiday season, I carefully removed all 6 strands of lights from the tree. Correction: I carefully removed all 6 strands of fully working lights from the tree. (Do you sense the foreshadowing? I like to keep my readers engaged, waiting anxiously) We put them away along with the tree and all other Christmas decor.

Upon our return from Moab this year, we excitedly pulled out said decor from it's storage spot, ready to disperse Christmas cheer throughout the house, but most specifically via our tree. We assembled our fake fir, fitting its three simple parts together, allowing its perpetually green limbs to drop into place, and addressed its obvious emptiness by pulling out those 600 points of light from their cozy storage bin and plugged them into the wall to check for burned out bulbs before we bedecked the lonesome tree.

These lights that we purchased last year, these lights that we so laboriously replaced last year, these lights that faithfully lit our room with holiday joy just last year, these lights were now an utter disappointment. Because although our intention, when plugging them into the wall, was to find the one or two stray, lifeless bulbs, what we discovered instead was that all 6 strands of lights were dead.

Lifeless.

Lightless.

Actually, I exaggerate. Of the 6 strands of lights, half of one strand did light up.

Whoopee.

And we discovered the same fate for our smaller strand that adorns our mantle, and for the lights that make up our outdoor wreath. All of them: useless as a New Kids On The Block LP.

We found ourselves wondering, is there some sort of bulb-killing gas emanating from our storage room? Have we a gremlin that secretly digs through our Christmas boxes during the summer and mischievously disables our strands of lights? Is God trying to convince us of the innate evilness of holiday lighting?

Or, could it be that my wild-eyed conspiracy theories about the China-based Christmas lighting industry aren't so far fetched after all?

In any case, the Chinese conglomerate got some more of our money as we shelled out for replacement lights...again. And after much angst, our tree is festively glowing as it should be.

The lights on, beads strung, and ornaments hung, Emily (sometimes known as Shorty McShort-Short) put the finishing touch atop the tree.

With some assistance.