Today was another beautiful day in South Dakota.  It tried to rain but finally gave up.  I am so glad too.  My neighbor kids came by to help me take the Christmas lights down where it required a ladder.  Their family doesn’t decorate with lights but they enjoyed mine and this was the first year for me to do so.

I learned so much about patience and babysteps during the holiday season because I had a lot of lights!  I would get them up, they would be lit and then they wouldn’t.  You know, all those funny Christmas movies where they are trying to decorate?  They don’t make it up! I also learned about electrical too.  Only a certain number of strings can be put together before a fuse will blow and through this adventure I found it usually was the first string.

Some of the lights probably could have been taken down earlier but I wanted to give it some thought as to how I was going to go about it.  Yes, it is always easier to take them down.  The trick was to figure out a way to make it easier for next season.

I got this idea to label the string of lights.  I took file folder labels wrote what part of the house they were and folded it at the end of the plug in where they have all of those warning labels.  I wanted to find a way to neatly roll them up so they won’t get tangled.  You can buy something for that but I still think they will still get tangled.  Until I can figure that one out, I will let it go.  I did take kitchen garbage bags and grouped the string of lights where they were located, put them in the bag and labeled as well.  At least it won’t be one be tangled mess.  I decided the small ones would be alright.  Maybe they won’t be as bad as I think.  Time will tell when the season comes around again.

I have four evergreen trees that still have lights on and will take them down in the coming days except for one.  A Robin has made a nest and I don’t want to disrupt it.  Now, I am wondering about the others.  I know two of the trees don’t have any nests so can take them down.  In any event, it will just be babysteps away!
Keep Flying!
Marilyn