We are finally getting around to decorating for Christmas. Which means we pulled out the tree from the attic and Paul and the boys set it up. And plugged it in. And unfortunately realized that several sections of the lights were burned out! Not only were they burned out, but the bulbs were blackened. Apparently our fake tree was now a fire hazard.
We have had the tree for 6 years, and it was a cheap pre-lit Walmart one, so it is not completely surprising that the lights burned out. But it is a pain in the rear. We considered buying a new tree, but didn't want to spend $150-$200 so close to Christmas when we had a perfectly good tree that just needed some new lights.
So I decided to go and buy some lights from Walmart. Not wonderful timing since there wasn't a huge selection since people in our area start decorating for Christmas the day after Halloween. I went with the fancy LED lights this time, they were $17/box and I only needed two boxes. I made sure to pick out the warm white lights, I really dislike the bluish bright white lights. Actually dislike is not strong enough of a word, I despise the cool bright white lights with a passion.
So I got home and the boys made sure all of the lights were working and put them on our tall 9.5 foot tree and plugged them in.
I came down to admire our beautiful tree when I noticed something was wrong. The top of the tree had beautiful warm lights, the bottom had cold scary bright white lights. The boys looked at me sheepishly, but it wasn't their fault. It was probably just an isolated incident. Maybe someone had returned the bright white lights and accidentally put the lights in the wrong box.
So the boys, who were being incredibly patient, wrapped up the lights best they could and I brought the box back to Walmart and exchanged it for a new box of warm white lights. Then I went home and plugged them in before putting them on the tree.
Guess, what, they were also cold bright white!
By this time I was getting very frustrated. It had been two days and not only was our tree not decorated, it only was half-lit! So I called Paul and asked if he could pop over to his Walmart after work and see if they had any warm white light boxes. There was no way I was buying any more of them from my Walmart since they obviously had a bad batch.
Paul HATES going to Walmart. With a passion. But since he is a great guy and loves me he stopped by after a long day of work. And then texted me that they were sold out of all of the warm white lights. I told him to hang on and I went on online trying to find another Walmart that stocked these lights. They were in stock all over town, but then I noticed the reviews.
Interesting, why such low reviews? Let me read a few.
So my issue was not an isolated issue. The manufacturers back in China had no quality control and apparently packed the wrong color white lights in these boxes randomly. ARGGGGGG.
We had already visited Walmart three times for our tree-lighting ceremony. And now I had one box of warm white lights and one box of cold white lights and a sad-looking undecorated tree.
Giving up on getting any decent lights at Walmart, Paul and I went to Target and bought some packs of incandescent warm white lights that not only looked gorgeous, but flicker! And they were on sale. YAY!
I told the boys to box up the Walmart lights, they were going back. As you can see it is impossible to put 300 lights back into that small box. But honesty I didn't care, we had already had to go to the store four times to get lights for our tree, thanks to Walmart's manufacture screw-up! They would have to send them back anyway since they couldn't resale them since the lights did not match the box.
This morning was our fifth and final trip dealing with Christmas lights. The boys did a great job putting the new ones from Target on the tree. See how warm they look, like little tiny candles. I even have a spare box just in case. Now we can finally put on the ornaments and get out our Christmas village.
It is starting to feel a lot like Christmas!!!
For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.
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Sounds like you had quite the adventure! I hope that the rest of the decoration process isn't quite so eventful!
ReplyDeleteLisa