The World’s Most Pointless Mission to Buy Christmas Lights
September 3rd, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Price: $11.99 USD
Bulbous Interruptus
There we were draping lights over the upper branches of a huge Christmas tree when the light string went dark. I came down the ladder with a sigh: I know how hard it is to find a faulty bulb in a Christmas light string. The rest of the family were a long way from being thrilled: we had almost finished our manic day of Christmas decorating and suddenly I needed to go out and buy Christmas lights. They showed their disapproval by refusing to accompany me to the local hardware store.
Those Blinking Lights!
I figured it wouldn’t be that difficult to buy Xmas lights in December. How wrong could I be? It looked like everyone and their dog had the same faulty lights and all the boxes of white Christmas lights had been sold. There were plenty of boxes with blue lights, red lights, multi-coloured lights, blinking lights (blinking lights indeed!) – every permutation of the festive light array imaginable. But a single string of white lights? Forget it. I might as well have been after a lock of Santa’s beard.
Price: $11.87 USD
Clinging to the Last Box
So, I headed for the shopping centre to buy Christmas lights. By this time, I was not too happy. My entire day was being wasted because of one faulty light bulb hiding in my light string. The last thing I wanted to do three weeks before Christmas was to go shopping for Christmas lights. I should be wrapping presents or cracking open a fine port wine. Nonetheless, my goal was to buy Xmas lights and finish my day of decorating. I fought my way through the car-park crowd and made my way through the holiday shoppers into the store. The Christmas aisles were almost empty. I was a bit nervous that I would not be able to buy Christmas lights in this store either. However, I managed to find several boxes of white Christmas lights and I clung to them for dear life. I dashed for the checkout to accomplish my goal - buy Xmas lights. With any luck, I’d be home in an hour and dinner wouldn’t be too late.
First Out of the Window
I stood in the queue for almost twenty minutes holding onto my measly boxes of lights. Everyone around me had their arms full of gifts. I felt a bit odd standing among these holiday shoppers just to buy Christmas tree lights. After I’d paid for them, I dashed home. While we finished decorating the tree by wrapping the brand new lights around it again, I told my kids how I’d tried two different stores. My wife asked me why I hadn’t simply asked my mother for some of her extra lights - she stocked up on every colour of lights at the end of every season. There had been no need to buy Christmas lights: I could have borrowed some. I finished decorating the tree in silence, wondering whey she hadn’t told me before and which of her presents I should throw out of the window first.
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Eoin Beckett is a freelance author and editor. Although he stems from Ireland, he currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Read more about Buy Christmas Lights at Juletide - the ancient and magical word for Christmas.
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