Now that the girls’ birthdays are in over we can start decorating the house for Christmas. I am beginning to think that we should be decorating the house for Christmas one week before Thanksgiving. Maybe next year I will be ambitious enough to start early by putting the Christmas lights outside on the first warm day after Halloween.
I don’t know what kind of tree you guys put up but we in our house have a pre-lit “fake” OR artificial Christmas Tree. I just can’t see cutting down a tree for just a couple of weeks no matter how good it smells. On top of that, my green thumb is not all that green and we would certainly have trouble keeping it alive for the holidays.
This is a little snippet of what our tree looked like last year..
This year we are having issues with our pre-lit tree. We picked it up the day after Christmas the 1st year we were married. It was half price on that day and we have not had any issues with it until now.
See what I mean?
(We are actually lying on the floor looking up the tree.)
As you can see there are sections of the tree that are lit and other sections of the tree that are not lit. I knew this was going to be a problem.
See what I mean?
Not only was this going to be a problem but I had to start making a list of all the things I needed to check. I took the three section tree apart again and began to investigate everything one section at a time. I had to check the plugs, then I realized that with our pre-lit I was going to have to take each bulb out one section at a time because if one bulb goes out the entire section goes out. What a pain-in-the-butt! Then there was the fuse issue. The little 3 amp fuses, the 5 amp fuses, and then having to pull out the little bulb because factories don’t make the little green unit that actually sits in the wiring on the tree branches.
There was A LOT to consider trying to solve this problem.
First I went to Walmart to look for a little Christmas tree tester, some fuses, and some extra lights. Would you know that they had absolutely no tree testers, no 3 amp or 5 amp fuse replacements, and NO extra lights? I was SHOCKED. I even had one of the managers come over to the section and help me look just in case I was missing something. Come on, it’s Walmart. I had to be missing something, right? Nope. I didn’t miss a thing. They weren’t selling the kind of lights I had, there were no 3 amp or 5 amp fuses, and certainly no Christmas Tree Testers. Ugh.
I decided to hit Home Depot next. They MUST have what I ‘m looking for. The guy was nice and took me over to the light section where they keep all their fuses. Surely they had some 5 amp fuses in stock.. It’s only the 13th of December so they must have a lot to choose from.. NOT!? Would you believe that Home Depot had nothing that I was looking for? I even went over to their Christmas Lights section because at this point I realized that I was going to have to string my own lights this year.
To be honest, stringing your own lights is probably the best way to go. The pre-lit trees are beautiful BUT you never know when the little light bulb on the tree is going to be retired. I know there are stores that carry the little lights that are on our tree but they were mostly out of stock. I say MOSTLY because if Walmart and Home Depot don’t have what I’m looking for in stock then you know it’s only a matter of time before they stop making those type of lights. So I ditched Home Depot with thoughts of Kmart and Super Target on the brain.
After dinner I hit the road again and this time I went straight for Kmart. Surely they MUST have what I’m looking for. Would you believe that Kmart had a pretty bangin’ Christmas section? It was beautiful! They had all sorts of ornaments and decorations to choose from. They had about 8 different Christmas Tree set ups and even had one that was on a stand that would make the tree spin. They had pre-lits too. The prices were not that bad.
Ok, I was super excited because around the corner they had fuses of all sizes. I found some 3 amps and some 5 amps for .66 cents per pack. I found a Christmas Tree Tester for $2 bucks. I was in heaven! But later on at home I realized that my pre-lit tree’s days were numbered. There was no way to fix the sections that were not lighting up. To be honest, I think it’s probably better to string your own tree. That way you never have to worry about having to figure out which light is out because you know if one is out the entire section is out and that just sucks.
So… instead of putting lights in our windows like I do every year… I decided to take those lights and string the tree with them. Our tree this year will have pre-lit white lights, multi-colored lights, and blue lights. We’ll finish up the decorating tonight with the girls. I like to watch them put the Christmas ornaments on the tree. I’ll share more of that with you later.
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