The Saga of the Christmas Tree Lights
Holly came over at midnite last nite to help me put the lights on our christmas tree. Btw, she so generously blessed us with the most awesome tree! So anyway, what should have been a two-hour session of fun, laughter, calculating and christmas lights, turned out to be a huge ordeal which did not see the end until just a few minutes ago.
I'm not real familiar with fuses and wiring and all that stuff. I just buy 16 boxes of lights, string them together, and watch someone work their magic on my tree. I was content to take the lights out of the box and snip the labels off, preparing the lights for Holly to hang. We talked about all sorts of things, laughed and told stories.
The light of the Christmas tree, ever increasing, was so beautiful. I began to feel the warm feelings of Christmas as my friend and I basked in all of the holiday beauty before us. However, when we were about 3/4 of the way up, they all went out. I checked the outlets--it wasn't the outlets. Was it a bulb? Because it was 2am, I don't remember how exactly we figured out which strand was the problem, but I fished one of the labels out of the trash which warned not to string more than three strands of lights together. How silly, right? My mom always strings all of hers together. Holly has 18 strands on her tree, all strung together.
To make a long story short, I figured out that we had blown a fuse in a strand of lights. By a miracle of God, we figured out how to open the plug, get the fuses out, and put new ones in. I plugged that strand into a different receptacle (?) in the extension cord. We felt so triumphant and empowered--we just changed a fuse! Everything was fine, so we continued our happy tree embellishing. Two strands later, blackout. But that was okay--I knew how to change fuses! We repeated the whole process again. I figured we could get about seven strands connected together before another receptacle needed to be used. I was right... for about an hour. The lights were up--'all is calm, all is bright.' Holly put hooks on the ornaments and watched as I put them on the tree, one by one. Only six ornaments left to go.
Then the most horrible thing happened. Blackout. We both stood there, speechless and in disbelief, for about 30 seconds. Then we both wanted cry. It was, by that time, 4am. I told Holly to go on home--I'd mess with it in the morning. She left, and I trudged off to bed, a defeated soldier.
I slept later than I should have, partly because I was so tired, but mostly because I was trying to avoid dealing with the Christmas tree lights. But, I finally got up, and I'm not joking--I prayed over that tree. Holly said the Lord cares about the comparatively insignificant things in our lives, things that we care about in day to day life that may have no real value in the grand scheme of things. Well, I cared about this tree. I felt so blessed to have it, and I really wanted it to work and be beautiful. I prayed over that tree and asked the Lord to help me get it to work. He answered those prayers.
I can't even explain it, but I walked right up to the tree, somehow found the exact plug, and in ten minutes my whole tree was glowing again.
I'm not real familiar with fuses and wiring and all that stuff. I just buy 16 boxes of lights, string them together, and watch someone work their magic on my tree. I was content to take the lights out of the box and snip the labels off, preparing the lights for Holly to hang. We talked about all sorts of things, laughed and told stories.
The light of the Christmas tree, ever increasing, was so beautiful. I began to feel the warm feelings of Christmas as my friend and I basked in all of the holiday beauty before us. However, when we were about 3/4 of the way up, they all went out. I checked the outlets--it wasn't the outlets. Was it a bulb? Because it was 2am, I don't remember how exactly we figured out which strand was the problem, but I fished one of the labels out of the trash which warned not to string more than three strands of lights together. How silly, right? My mom always strings all of hers together. Holly has 18 strands on her tree, all strung together.
To make a long story short, I figured out that we had blown a fuse in a strand of lights. By a miracle of God, we figured out how to open the plug, get the fuses out, and put new ones in. I plugged that strand into a different receptacle (?) in the extension cord. We felt so triumphant and empowered--we just changed a fuse! Everything was fine, so we continued our happy tree embellishing. Two strands later, blackout. But that was okay--I knew how to change fuses! We repeated the whole process again. I figured we could get about seven strands connected together before another receptacle needed to be used. I was right... for about an hour. The lights were up--'all is calm, all is bright.' Holly put hooks on the ornaments and watched as I put them on the tree, one by one. Only six ornaments left to go.
Then the most horrible thing happened. Blackout. We both stood there, speechless and in disbelief, for about 30 seconds. Then we both wanted cry. It was, by that time, 4am. I told Holly to go on home--I'd mess with it in the morning. She left, and I trudged off to bed, a defeated soldier.
I slept later than I should have, partly because I was so tired, but mostly because I was trying to avoid dealing with the Christmas tree lights. But, I finally got up, and I'm not joking--I prayed over that tree. Holly said the Lord cares about the comparatively insignificant things in our lives, things that we care about in day to day life that may have no real value in the grand scheme of things. Well, I cared about this tree. I felt so blessed to have it, and I really wanted it to work and be beautiful. I prayed over that tree and asked the Lord to help me get it to work. He answered those prayers.
I can't even explain it, but I walked right up to the tree, somehow found the exact plug, and in ten minutes my whole tree was glowing again.