Dumb Christmas tree lights!

Foreword: I appologize for the length of this post. I got a bit carried away but you will probably get a kick out of it.

There are a few specific things Jaren told me "came with the package" when we got married. These he informed me were absolute and there was no bargaining on the matter. They are as follows...

1. I must like white water rafting. His whole family has gone white water rafting as their summer family vacation since just after Blake and Teresa (Jaren's parents) were married. Jaren LOVES white water rafting. He looks forward to it all year. He decided to take me on my first white water rafting trip when we were engaged and before hand told me I must like white water rafting or he would not marry me. All of you who truly know Jaren understand this. I was terrified at first and it has taken our whole marriage so far to get mostly comfortable with the swift moving (cold) rivers that we raft. I have come to not only like it but even enjoy it...thank goodness. If not, I think Jaren would have dragged me down the river anyway.

2. Our first son will be named Blake. This Jaren told me after we were married. He must have been thinking about having kids at the time because it had only been days since we had returned from our honeymoon and out of the blue said "Oh, by the way, we're naming our first son Blake." To which I dumbfoundedly replied "ok" after not having a say in the matter. He then said "it comes with the package." Blake is not only his father's name but Jaren's middle name. Good thing I really like the name Blake! :)

3. Any and all Christmas trees we ever have will be/have:

a. REAL

b. Noble fir

c. lights wrapped around almost every branch

My family always got Douglas firs for our Christmas trees. My dad would wrap about 4 strands of lights around the outside of the tree. Jaren said that was absolutely unacceptable for our tree. Growing up, his family always went out and cut hundreds of Christmas trees and sold them at the family Nursery. People would pay them to string the lights on their tree. Jaren participated and spent several Christmas seasons wrapping tons of lights around the branches of beautiful pine trees. When we got our first real tree, he used this talent to show me how he thought all Christmas tree lights should look. I believe that year and every year since he has strung at least 15 strands of white lights on our tree.

This year, I am living with mom and dad while Jaren is in Iraq. For the first time in my life, mom and dad actually decided to purchase a Noble fir. So, I thought I would carry on with Jaren's tradition and attempted to string the lights myself the way he does. This is not as easy as it looks. Doing the top is ok but when you get to the more full bottom, you can't see a thing trying to wrap the lights around one branch with tons of other branches in the way. I had to have my mom follow me around the tree holding the branches out of my way. How Jaren does this all by himself, is a mystery to me. Since I am also not very experienced with the lights, I didn't check the individual strands until I had spent about 15-20 minutes each putting them on the tree. Good thing they all worked when I checked them. I used all of mom and dads lights then ran out (6 strands). So I climbed into the attic to get some of my lights that are being stored up there (another 4 strands). There is now a line on the tree between their lights and mine. Theirs have more of a yellow light and are a bit more dim than mine. I also got a little carried away with the first strand of my lights and there is a very concentrated and bright section in the middle of the tree. After all four strands were used, I stopped for the day. I could only handle a couple of hours at one time.

Today I went back up into the attic to get another 5 strands and finished off the tree with 4 of them making a grand total of 14 strands of lights! Mind you, this is not a big tree. Aside from the noticeable difference in the lights on top as opposed to my lights on the bottom, the tree looked mostly great. A few minor bare sections but what can I say...this was my first try. Jaren would have done a much better job but he has had years of practice. I still felt a sense of accomplishment for making it through this torturous task (I nearly gave up 3 times). When I came down the stairs and looked in the living room to see my beautiful handi-work, I was dismayed to find the top 3/4 of the tree completely dark. I then spent several minutes trying to find out why the lights that were working 20 minutes before were no longer working! I grabbed the last strand of lights and went around the tree trying to find the one that wasn't working. Just as I found the culprit light strand, the one I was using to test the others stopped working too. Am I cursed or what? I managed to work it out so all of the strands above and below it are plugged into the extension cord. That one section is a dark spot. I was NOT about to take them off and put on a new string. I have decided now to NEVER string the lights again! I firmly believed before that the lights are Jaren's job and am even more resolved about it now. Oh, and Jaren...I won't ever say a thing about the lights again. You can just do your thing. You are great at it and you won't hear a peep out of me.

You can't see too well from these pictures but here is my Christmas tree with 14 strands of DUMB lights! I won't say that out loud though, the other strands might stop working too! ~ Emily

It doesn't look too bad. The culprit strand is the lower middle section on the left, underneath the really bright section.

That rascally little strand of lights!