More with Less

Sometimes, less works better.

The girls and I put up the tree this past weekend. It was shiny, we were proud. Monday, when the older two got home from school, I plugged in the tree and settled in for some sparkly relaxation. I left the room for a moment and came back to find a dark tree. Somewhere, in the long series of light strings, a fuse had blown. In my heart of hearts I knew it was a very minor deal but closer to the surface I felt the intense panic of crisis mode. Christmas was ruined and we were still 20 days away!

I asked Stan to check out the situation since he's good with electricity and I'm scared of setting the house on fire. (Of course, when it comes to candles our roles are reversed. It's good to divide the fear.) Stan sighed, and said he would add my request to his (very long) list of to-dos. I sighed and set about learning to love my dark, not-twinkling tree.

A few days later I found lights - the colored ones Monkey & Peanut REALLY wanted this year - at a good price so I picked them up. Once upon a time I was a strong, independent woman so I can handle some tree lights, right? Stan solves his problems his way, I usually find alternate routes and skirt around them. Either way, that tree was going to glitter once more.

First step: Get the dead lights off the fully decorated tree. Even with Puddin' "helping," we managed to accomplish this without breaking anything. Second step: Check the dead lights. Turns out, only one strand had blown. Woohoo! Third step: Decide between old white lights that might fail again or new colored lights that would bring delight to two small darlings. The price on the new lights was good but not quite up to bargain standards so I went for the cheap. Fourth step: Restring lights, maneuvering around ornaments, and get all the way to the top using fewer strands.

Maybe it was the lack of bickering in the air, or maybe the Spirit-of-Christmas-Thrift helped me along: regardless, our tree is shiny again. The lights are evenly spaced and go all the way to the top. I even had an extra strand leftover (in addition to the busted one.) More than that, my ego is feeling a little more sparkly. Maybe I'm ready to tackle that broken light fixture. All else fails, I'll get to teach Puddin' to use a fire extinguisher.