Christmas Tree is Up

I like to use the Thanksgiving break to decorate the house for Christmas. Setting up the tree is actually a lot of work as mine is a custom tree I built several decades ago. I have a vaulted entry way in my house with a nice semi-spiral staircase. It is a very narrow area for a tree and so I custom built ours to fit perfectly. We then use the stairway to help decorate the tree. It works well but takes forever to set up, light, and then decorate. My wife and I have been working on it since Thanksgiving day. Fortunately we only really spend and hour or two each day. This evening we finally finished putting on the Christmas tree ornaments and it looks amazing.

One thing that has really helped speed up our decorating efforts is LED Christmas lights. Before we replaced all of the lights on the tree with LED's we would spend countless hours hunting down burned-out bulbs. It is nice to know that when I plug in the lights, they will just work. Thinking back on this Thanksgiving weekend about technology I am thankful for, I would have to say LED lighting is on that list.

Christmas Lights

This evening is a cold and rainy night on the boat in the Bay Area. Don't worry, I have two heaters running and so the inside of my boat is nice and comfortable. I also did something a little different with my boat this year: I added Christmas lights to the lifelines around the deck. I just stepped outside for a quick moment to get something and my colorful lights make the boat that much more warm and inviting.

I decided to do Christmas lights on the boat to help me get in the Christmas spirit. For the past several years I have felt like something has been missing from this festive season. My son and his wife came by the boat last night and both remarked about how cozy it made the boat look

Tonight is my last night on the boat and then I head back to Utah to get ready for Christmas in earnest. There I have my Christmas tree set up and the house decorated for the upcoming festivities. That means tomorrow morning I will wake up and take the Christmas lights off the boat so they don't get damaged in one of the many storms that will sweep through the marina during my absence. Removing the lights won't take very long and I have to admit that it won't seem like a chore simply because I have enjoyed having them. There are a number of other boats in the marina with Christmas lights and they have helped add to the season atmosphere. So if you find yourself missing some of the Christmas spirit, put up some lights and see if that doesn't help.

Christmas Lights

Yesterday was the day my wife and I decided to put up the family Christmas tree. It normally takes us a good couple of hours to set up the custom artificial tree. We like to string the lights as we put the tree together. We got about half done when the lights stopped working. Naturally we stopped to troubleshoot the them. At around 10:00 pm we decided to just go to the store and get a couple new strands of lights.

Today my wife went to six different stores and they didn't have the lights we needed. Thinking that I had all of the answers. I went out and didn't do any better. As we left the last store, my wife told me she was done and didn't need a Christmas tree this year.

Later this evening my wife was able to calm down and came up with a store that might have strands of lights. Without telling me she snuck off to a store and found what we were looking for. She was happy and we were able to get the tree set up. Now we just need to hang the decorations. Before this evening, I thought computers were the most frustrating thing on the planet. Nope, it is Christmas lights.