KEEPING YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR DURING THE HOLIDAYS ...

Hi, all,

Sorry it's been a while, but I've been experiencing lots of Christmas mishaps ...

You know it's happened to all of us: the tangled Christmas lights. But this post isn't about that, although we all need to have MAJOR patience and have several glasses of wine for that yearly event.

This lovely little tale began on Saturday. After agonizing over finding the perfect Christmas tree, a new pre-lit, I was finally ready to set up the new seven foot beauty.

One good thing about pre-lits, NO TANGLED LIGHTS... lol. Had to mention it again. After piecing it together and connecting the lights, I was ready to "Fluff the tree." As many of you know, these trees are hideous coming out of the box. "Fluffing" is THE new art form. It took me a little over an hour to separate every branch and open up the hundreds of needles.

Standing back, I had realized this tree was WAY too skinny. Tall and thin it disappeared in my oversized living room. Moving from point A to point B, I found a spot that would work.

Now for the fun ... decorating. I had spent most of the morning dragging up about half a dozen massive plastic storage bins from my storage unit in the basement of my building. Yes, there is an elevator, but my storage unit is on the other side of the building... of course.

After several more hours of painstakingly placing each wonderful ornament in it's place, I was ready to tinsel the tree. This is a most important step... you can't just throw it on, it has to be "drizzled" expertly so it looks like cascading snow. Another hour and it was done.

Although still looking quite slim, the tree looked beautiful. I grabbed a glass of wine and with the Christmas music on, I sat on the new comfy sofa to admire my many hours of work.

So what's the point of this post, you ask?

Twenty-four hours later.

Sunday was a friend's birthday, so before I left for the afternoon, I had turned on the tree. I couldn't wait to see it from the street that evening. I live on the second floor and my living room has five wrap around windows, so the tree is quite visible from several angles.

As my friend drove up to my building to take me home, he had commented on how pretty the tree looked. I had glanced up, finding my neighbor's STUNNING nine-foot beauty twinkling in the next set of windows.

"Not mine, my neighbors. My tree isn't lit. Hmmm, I wonder why?" I had said.

I raced up to my condo, opened the door, and sprinted into the pitch-black living room. "Not good."

The tree was lifeless. I thought perhaps the socket blew... nope. I changed the extension. Nope. After a good half an hour trying everything, nothing worked.

"Great!" I had exclaimed. "All this work and stress for nothing!" I went to bed fuming.

Yesterday, after another several hours of collecting the hundreds of strands of tinsel, dozens of ornaments, etc, a thought popped into my head.
"Hey, don't lights have those little fuse things for when the trees lights blow out?" I found the little package and crawled under the tree. Using tweezers to get to the little suckers and I replaced the fuses.

"It's a Christmas miracle," I grumbled.

Looking all around at the explosion of Christmas on every hidden surface, I shook my head. "Why couldn't I have thought of this before I tore apart the tree..."

Has anything like this ever happened to you? I'd love to hear about it.

So my dear bloggy friends.... Remember we ALL need to have a sense of humor durning this wonderful time of year.

Have I redecorated the tree, you ask? Nope.... I decided the tree really is too thin and is going back. So now back to step one... locating the perfect tree. Time is running out.... Wish me luck.

Have a great day everyone!