Alphabe-Thursday...those crazy days of Christmas

I thought I'd jump in here today with an Alphabe-Thursday Christmas break post. We're taking a couple of weeks off from our regularly scheduled alphabet related post and posting a holiday link. To visit other participants head over to Ms. Jenny's blog, Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."

My holiday decorations are starting to drive me crazy. I spent the better part of two days trying to get the lights to work on the wreath for our front door. You know how it can drive you crazy when one light goes out and then a bunch of others go off with the burnt out one? Well, I decided to buy one of those Light Keeper Pros. It said on the package that you could fix light sets quickly and easily. I bought mine at Target, but I noticed on Amazon that it got a lot of really good reviews. I enlisted Murphy to help with this project.


I took the wreath down and tried the first thing the directions suggest which is to plug an empty light socket into the Light Keeper Pro and pull the trigger up to 30 times. The set is supposed to light up and the burnt out one will remain off and be obvious. I tried a few different sockets and then decided to try the second method which is to take out the bulbs one by one and test them in the bulb tester located on the top of the Light Keeper Pro. I quickly realized I'd have to mark each one with a Sharpie as I tested it or I'd lose track since the string was wrapped around the wreath randomly. So, I spent two hours testing the unlit bulbs. When I got back to where I had begun I realized that now more lights were out. That's when I gave up!

I'm sure the Light Keeper Pro works great for other people, but for me it was a bust. Please blame the operator and not the Light Keeper Pro. I ended up taking the light string off the wreath and buying a new one. Of course, that was no simple task since most of the stores were now out of white lights. I drove from store to store and finally found some at Walgreens. The wreath is now completely lit and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way until after Christmas.

Then this morning I was sitting in the den reading the newspaper when I happened to notice the Christmas tree shaking. I know it shakes a little when the cats walk under the tree, but this time it was shaking way too much. That's when I discovered this...





My first instinct was to grab the camera. My second instinct was to grab the cat. I think Zoom was glad when I grabbed her because she was having a hard time trying to figure out how to get out. She kept trying to go to the end of the branch, but the branch kept bending.

I hope everyone has a good holiday. Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

To visit more Alphabe-Thursday holiday posts head over to Ms. Jenny's blog.