A return to past pleasures
Scratch another of my misconceptions. Holiday lighting is valuable, and not just to shareholders in the electric company.
It goes back to my childhood, where I was the designated bulb tester for the rats’ nest of light strings that we brought out each December. The variety that went black when any single bulb was defective or missing (think bulb thieves). I learned the simple principles of electricity right there… and survived to tell the tale. And I grew up believing that the TCO (total cost of ownership: thank you, dictionary of economics) was quite low.
Except that inflation is as much a fact of life as those pesky bees. There is a desire to illuminate the area in front of our house. Pointless exercise, actually, given the 20 metre monument to multiple lights prepared by our neighbour. I suggested placing an illuminated arrow in front of our house…
For the sake of a C-note, you too can purchase sufficient strings of LEDs and minimum amounts of copper. Enough to show the neighbours that you, too, care about the commercial character of the season (doesn’t begin with C, but those soft S sounds are tricky). Soon we’ll have our own show. One plus: the bulbs no longer screw out (take that, bulb thieves). At least, I hope not. Between now and the New Year, could we have a time of world peace and limited larceny?
My real fear is that we’ll fill the tree, and then the string at the top will malfunction, and we’ll have to take the whole thing down in order to test for the fault, and I will have reverted to my original role.
