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A test of ye olde holiday spirit

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For sale: Slightly used light strings that won't light.

For sale: Slightly used light strings that won’t light.

It’s a question I’ve long pondered: Why America, with all its tech prowess and industrial might, can’t produce a string of Christmas lights that will last more than one season.

Yesterday I decided to deploy my annual Christmas display, a subdued arrangement consisting of lighted garlands on the porch and fake greenery around the entrance and a door wreath that is admittedly getting a little threadbare.

I plugged everything in. Three of the four strings remained dark. No problem, I thought: I’ll just change fuses. I did that, and — voila! — now none of the strings would light. A variety of Christmas curses filled the tepid air over Jacksonville — like Darrin McGavin in A Christmas Story, except mine was actual profanity.

I considered bundling all the Christmas crap back into the garage and being done with it. But this morning it’s still out there.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a metaphor for finding the Christmas spirit in an aging heart. Sometimes it just doesn’t light up when it should. And all you can do is make that pilgrimage to your inner Home Depot to get some new lights.

Which is on my to-do list for today.

More along these lines:

Comments

  1. Here’s hoping that everything is in stock this year at our inner Home Depots.

    By the way, I seem to have stumbled on a way to make Thanksgiving more bearable for us introverts: host it and invite lots of people (about 15 in-laws, in my case). This sounds counter-intuitive, but it has two advantages: you don’t have to go to someone else’s home, and all those people can entertain each other while you hang out. This is what we’ve done for the last 2 years. I was worried that last year was a fluke, but it was the same this year.

    • It’s so crazy, it just might work! Actually, I think you’re onto something, John. The best holidays I can remember all involved people coming to my place, instead of the other way around.

  2. When we plan an affair with guests with reticence similar to mine, we also invite a gregarious friend and his bride. Said friend, who is good at listening to others before he engages, carries the conversation and provides the entertainment. I’m happy to observe from the sidelines.