Where the *&^%$#*@ are the twinkle lights?
The holidays seem to sneak up faster each year. In a little over a week it will be Thanksgiving and before you know it, Christmas will be over and we’ll be ushering in 2010. I tend to start with the Christmas decorating right after Halloween because usually the weather is still good and well, who likes putting up decorations in the snow? I don’t. So, I started early this year with the intentions of turning on the lights around Mike’s birthday which is Monday. Since his death, I try to do little things that help celebrate his life (and quite frankly help diminish the sadness of his death) and part of that is planning a birthday celebration. We did it last year and it meant a lot to Michaela. I know this because she brought it up again this year. Again, we are making a cake with an angel. Again we’ll buy dad the best bouquet of flowers we can find and place them at his grave and again we’ll put up the Fluck family Christmas tree and light it for his birthday. So, yesterday I drug out the ol’ Christmas tree and commenced with the decorating.It wouldn’t be a typical Christmas decorating adventure if it didn’t involve a trip to Walgreens or Kmart. As I put the tree together I noticed that several branches were not lit. I grumbled. I crawled under the tree to figure out why but couldn’t. With a half turn of the tree, the dark parts were hidden against the wall. Problem solved. Next I augment the pitifully pre-light tree with MORE lights because that’s how I roll. It has to sparkle. I pulled out my strings of twinkling lights. They tested ok so I dragged them over to the tree. Somewhere along the way they decided to stop working. I plugged them into the tree and only a 3rd light up and even less twinkled. Mom suggested I try a different outlet and despite knowing the outcome would be the same, I did give it a try. It was blustery and snowy outside and the last thing I wanted to do was get in my car and drive to the store. I tried multiple outlets with the same result. My options were to use only 1 strand of twinkle lights and then put the rest of the “constant on” lights on the tree and just live with it. I stared at the tree in disgust. And under my breath I muttered that the tree MUST twinkle. Again I looked outside at the snow being whipped around the yard. “I’ll be back soon,” I told my mom.My sister decided to come along to search for new twinkle lights. I figured this would be quick. We have a new Walgreens just down the hill. This would be as painless as I could make it. We get to the Christmas aisle and discovered that what was once last year a grand display of yuletide joy in decorating bounty was this year a lousy row of snowflake lights, lights that looked like giant C-9 light bulbs and LED Constantly On Power Saving Yes You TOO Can Save the Planet with your Stupid Christmas Tree Lights. Not one box claimed to twinkle. Not one claimed to be multi-function. And I stood there stunned. What? No twinkle lights? Debbie offered to drive me to a different store and so the hunt was on.Next was Kmart. Their Christmas display at least took up a whole corner of the store and I would say they had many shelves worth of lights. But again, none of them twinkled. None of them sparkled. None of them blinked. Boxes proudly claimed their energy savings and how wonderful it would be to connect over 80 strands together because that would be the equivalent of hooking 3 of your old energy sucking old-time mini lights. I don’t know anyone who would need 80 strands of lights let alone who would connect them all together. However if I had the dough, I would give that a try just to say I could. But I won’t because none of these dang things twinkled!!! It is a conspiracy I say and with a wary eye I looked around me for hidden cameras. It wasn’t like this last year. Obama takes the oath of office and our first Christmas as our Commander in Chief and we’re no longer allowed to buy lights that blink. What country am I living in??? This totally sucked. I want lights that twinkle and I want them NOW.Off to Home Depot… The Christmas section was smaller there this year too – pushed to the far side of the store near lumber. What’s that all about? Their lights took all of 3 shelves. There were faceted lights, round lights, blue lights, red lights and none of them twinkled, sparkled or blinked. Home freakin’ Depot doesn’t have twinkle lights!? A bastion of American capitalism at its best has no twinkle lights? The mecca for all the Tim Taylors of the world doesn’t have lights that blink? This was down right blasphemous. I was stunned. I would have been speechless but I was too pissed. I looked at the nice family looking at lights next to me and asked them if they were as disgusted as I was. The father exclaimed he wanted energy sucking lights too. I think he was mocking me. Jerk. Dejected, I told Debbie that she could just take me home. This is just how things are going to be now. Some bonehead in the government is going to tell me how, when and IF I can get a flu shot and now I can’t buy twinkle lights. This just isn’t the America I used to know…Debbie suggested we try one more store. Walmart was just down the street. I wasn’t optimistic. I had seen their Christmas display too and wasn’t impressed by its lack of charm, sense of wonder and Christmas spirit. But I agreed that it was worth the final look. We happened upon some boxes that said multi-function. This was a good sign. But there were only a few left and they were $12. Seriously? We finally found some LED lights that pretended to be C-7 lights. They didn’t blink but changed colors – some from red to green and others from blue to white. I am not sure why they couldn’t make a strand that changed all 4 colors. But it was encouraging to see them. I knew that LEDs could blink! But these cost $12 a strand too. I grabbed only 1 of each. I’d have to spread it out as best I could but dang it, my tree….my MEMORIAL TREE for my DEAD HUSBAND would get to twinkle and my little girl would get to enjoy it. I was still disgusted though… Our holiday has been hijacked by environmentalist wackos and deviants who dare to post a Facebook poll, “Should Christ be kept in Christmas?” Excuse me? Is it called Frankmas? Or Obamamas? Or what? Sheesh.Well, at least my tree twinkles, sparkles and blinks now. I may as well enjoy it while I still can because who knows what next Christmas will bring?
