Chritmas Tree Lights

The unthinkable has happened, one of my strings of lights on the Christmas tree went out.  This is the problem with having 2000 lights on the tree.  Sooner or later there is going to be a string that goes out and then it's a pain to go back and replace them, because it requires more than just replacing the lights.  It ends up requiring removing the lights as well as the ornaments and garland, reaching into the tree to unplug the lights and string new ones, then make sure that they are spaced evenly when the new string goes on.

So I get home from work after getting a message from Kris saying that there were lights out and see where they are.  I started with wiggling lights and at first they came back on after trying two or three lights.  I couldn't be that lucky though.  A day later they were out again.  And they weren't just out.  Only half the string was out, and the other half was brighter than any other lights on the tree.  I thought that couldn't be good for sure.  So I had to unplug the string and go to the store to get some new strings.  I figured I'd get a couple of extras too, just because I can always use lights since they are always going out.  Usually it happens when I test them the next year after sitting in a bin for 10 months. I also got a couple more extension cords, because I thought that maybe the reason the string blew was because I had too many strings connected.  The directions usually say not to string more than 4 string together, but I did have a couple of sets of four strings plugged into the same extension cord.  I don't know if that would have made a difference but I thought it would only be better if I only used one extension cord per set of four strings.

It took me about 45 minutes to get the ornaments off, the old string out, and the new one plugged in and wrapped properly.  After putting the ornaments back on and standing back to look at the top of the tree (which is where the string was out) I thought that I probably had wrapped the new string a little too far apart.  But I wasn't about to go back and restring it, I just wanted it to be over and done, so I left it.  Maybe I'll look for a few more ornaments to fill in around the top so it doesn't look so light on the lights.