[silvergirl]

Damn lights! They can drive you nuts! My dh used to light up the whole outside of the house and bushes in the frigid freezing weather and stand back admiring it and then a set would be out. He'd replace it and the next day, another would go out. I think our lights were being sabotaged! Needless to say, we no longer light the outside of the house.
We used to get a real tree but nobody ever told us you had to let it settle overnight and let the branches fall before you start decorating it! I never knew you had to tighten the stand periodically, either. You know, for when the trunk gets mushy....(who knows this???)
We had just completed a major renovation/rebuild of our house and were having a Christmas/housewarming party. As our guests came in, we took their coats and all brought our first drinks over to admire the beautiful and very large and very heavily decorated tree . As we stood in front of it, it just starting leaning forward ever so slowly....like in slow motion........I thought I was seeing things, but only was on my first drink.... before we realized what was happening, the damn thing came crashing down at our feet! Broken glass ornaments everywhere! The girls got on our hands and knees picking up whatever we could while the guys tried to salvage the tree. We ended up tying it to the wall with fishing line to make sure it stayed! When we got up from the floor, we all had big wet stains on our pants from the tree water that spilled. Welcome to our new home!!! Our poor friends. They were such good sports. They felt so bad for us and I was horrified! There were many drinks consumed that night!
We've got one of those pre-lit trees now.
I say it's much easier to just go away for the holidays!