Lights out!

Whoever told you strings of Christmas lights are made in China, LIED. Lied, I tell you. They are made in Hell.

Last year, I put into storage working strings of lights. That would be the lights around the front door and the lights up the banister. While our pre-lit Christmas tree had already proved itself untrustworthy the second year of its existence by losing all contact with one portion of its pre-lit-ness, I had tucked away a string of lights to connect to it so it would resemble a whole tree. It is forgiven its transgression because by now, I don't care.

But the others are not. I had several strings (working when stored) in reserve. They did not completely work either. About 3/4 of each strand did. For the front door, I doubled good lights over bad and twisted them around nails in the hopes they will stay up there. For the banister, I disengaged the two strands, neither of which was 100% competent, and replaced with another which--let me hold my breath--worked for the time being.

Christmas lights: made in Hell.