Christmas lights

Last weekend Samantha and I got everything Christmas out of the attic. We decided to put the icicle lights up on the house again for this year. As the picture shows, we had ice last Christmas and the ice ended up pulling down one of the light chains and busted a good many of the tiny bulbs. The first job then was to fix the damaged lights. The first one out of the box must have been the chain that took the biggest hit last year as many sections of it wouldn't work. Sam and I decided to cannibalize it to get the others properly working. We were surprised to find an unopened box of icicles to replaced the damaged one.

Part of this year's fun was discovered over the summer. As part of a bulk garbage pick-up by the city, I decided to empty the attic of unnecessary items. In doing this I discovered where I had put lots of other lights from years gone by. After the icicle lights were fixed and put up in front, I began untangling and fixing these old lights. I recognized these right away. We have some lights that are big bulbs, about the size of eggs and solid colored. Not my faves. Also many chains of smaller bulbs that are solid colored and clear colored. Last of the bulbed lights are three or four chains of smaller bulbs that are very faded and beat up. These used to hang in our back yard for a year or two long ago. We would turn them on at night and go play in the backyard when the boys were little. The boys loved to play soccer at night, and who could blame them - its much cooler then.

I ended up fixing these extras and putting them up on the back of our house and along the fence next to the road. It looks goofy but I'll take a Christmas exemption on that.

There is a lot of variety of lights up on houses around the neighborhood. I have been looking at the houses nearby that leave the lights on the house year round ( but don't turn them on obviously) and there are large sections of these lights that don't work. Some houses have one strand near the door or on a tree, and others have lights everywhere. And then there are the chasing lights that turn the house into a Blockbuster Video store.

My preference is for the simple lights altho the icicle light is more the norm today. I like the small bulbs, clear and with colors. Its a bonus if some of these lights pop on and off randomly - I have only a few of those treasured bulbs now.

Overall our house looks much like it has for the past many years, as do our neighbor's. Next week we go to the Trail Of Light on Town Lake for that traditional trip - with hot chocolate.