Putting up Christmas lights leaves family in the dark

We can send men and women into space, but we can't get reliable Christmas tree lights.

Every year, we faithfully drag out our colored lights and check each strand before we hang them on the fluffed branches of our artificial tree.

This year was no exception. Every strand glowed brightly. So I began the task of wrapping the strands around the tree from top to bottom. When I was finished, I plugged in the lights and surprisingly they worked.

But not for long. Within a few minutes, the top two-thirds of the tree was plunged into darkness. What had happened to our lights?

Naturally, I was upset. How could these lights fail me in this joyous Christmas season? To make matters worse, Becca and Bailey had already begun to hang ornaments on the tree.

I envisioned having to strip the tree bare and start all over.

By this time it was late at night so I did the next best thing. I turned off the lights and went to bed.

"If you don't turn on the lights no one will know they don't work," I advised Joni. But my wife wouldn't hear of it. She insisted that we had to have glowing Christmas lights.

As I waited to take the children to dance class the other night, I started exploring the problem. I reached deep beneath the branches of our artificial tree searching for those elusive connecting plugs. I finally found two of them. I used my vast electrical knowledge and wiggled them. This caused all the lights to momentarily come back on.

I disconnected the two plugs and then reconnected them. The lights miraculously came on and even more amazingly stayed on, including the lit angel at the top of the tree.

I was thrilled that I tackled the problem without having to call in an electrician, the fire department, or homeland security personnel.

Of course, Joni and I have yet to tackle the job of erecting all our outside Christmas lights.

As with indoor lights, we can never be sure the outdoor lights will work once they have been attached to our house or erected in the front lawn as part of various reindeer and other yard ornaments that annually are hauled down from the attic.

Every year, at least some of the lights go out, and I contemplate stockpiling massive quantities of Christmas lights and portable generators to keep the season glowing.

Holiday lights may well have been invented by the Grinch, who clearly had a hand in those little tiny fuses that go out only after the strands of lights have been erected on trees and along roof edges.

If our homes were lit solely with Christmas lights, we'd be in the dark half the time.

Historians insist that lights have been illuminating our holiday over the last 100 years, although few people could afford such luxury in the early 1900s.

A typical lighted tree in those days cost upward of $300 including the generator and wireman's services.

It wasn't until 1903 that GE offered a pre-assembled lighting outfit for the first time. The outfit had eight green pre-wired porcelain sockets, eight miniature colored glass lamps and a screw-in plug for easy attachment to a nearby wall or ceiling light socket.

Thankfully, we've progressed beyond electric shock, and now we can buy really tiny lights made in China that we can program to blink in unison for at least a few minutes until they break down.

The whole idea makes one feel warm all over, which previously could only be achieved by setting the Christmas tree on fire with burning candles.

With any luck, we won't be in the dark this Christmas.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.