Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott for December 08, 2023

Darryl getting the Christmas lights down from the attic a little easier might have helped maybe. Just saying.

We did ours yesterday without much trouble, but only the tree lights.

One guess who slopped the lights into the box last year.

We meet again.

Time to go out and buy new lights!

Going to be even worse when he opens the box and finds all the shattered bulbs.

My job as a kid. Untangling the lights and finding the burnt out bulbs.

Hello darkness my old friend, which of your lights is burned out again.

Welcome to MY Christmas!

For an appropriate sequel, see today’s “Foxtrot Classics”.

It was all part of Daryl’s plan to shatter the lights so he wouldn’t have to untangle them!

“This year, we’re setting the lights on fire on the front lawn, kids!”

2 hard lessons learned: switch to LEDs, a bad bulb doesn’t cause the whole strand to not work. Go the electrical department of a hardware store, buy those plastic wind-up caddies for wire and use them to store bulbs. No tangles and you can label them if used for specific purposes, i.e, a door or picture window.

I have cord storage holders that I wind them up on and wind them off of. No tangles. I also have LEDs, if they don’t light, I get a new set. After 10 years I had one set of solar ones die. I think it was the solar unit more than the lights but not a big deal to get a new set.

Extension cords seem to do the same thing, no matter how careful you are when you coil the cord up. The long longer the cord, the more knots and snarls.

Ah yes; the annual untangling of the Christmas lights.

Put the lights away tangled and you face untangling this time of year. I loop the strings of lights and put a paper between each string when putting them back in the storage bin.

Put them away correctly and you don’t have this problem!

I bet this is exactly why my folks never did outside lights – far too much hassle!

Last year’s Darryl strikes again!

“We begin our little Holiday Tangle, er… Tango, once again…”

Untangling and checking the lights ought to be a good job for the kids, It would keep them busy for a while. By the time they’re done, they may feel they’ve done enough and not nag about climbing on the roof., which I’ve never understood anyway, I’ve never had to climb on the roof to hang the Christmas lights. Of course, I only hang them on the gutters, not all over the roof.

Oh no, knot again!

We light and decorate in stages, different ideas and all… Easier, lasts longer, we have to work around some of the animals, too. Adventures abound, but no tinsel…. ever.

Actually “Pogo” comes to mind. “We’ve seen the enemy and he is us”…….

I always wrapped mine around empty paper towel holders, taped in place, wrapped in a plastic bag, no problem with them tangling!

I hung lights over the fireplace last night. No tree this year…. younger cats are too young. I’ll be lucky if they leave the lights alone.

Ah the luxury of being old, and having planned for a comfortable retirement. We have a company that puts ours up and takes them down. In the warm months they are a lawn service, in the cold months they are in the Christmas light installation and take down business. Reasonably priced as well, plus I don’t need to store or fight with the light either.

Reminds me of the knot in the lights in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Indoor silver tree with color wheel – check! Outdoor single projection device that casts falling snow images on the whole front side of the house – check! Christmas lighting done – in under 30 minutes tops! :)

Projected lights are nice, but you miss the ambulances coming to pick you up from the ground to take your broken body back to the hospital.

When done for the season, I always coiled mine up in a circle so next year no tangled mess.

I wonder if there’s a market for untangling light strings. I wonder how much I can make doing it. I’m really good at untangling things.

My simple solution to this, when I used to go all out and decorate the entire front of the house and yard with lights: Put each string of lights in a old plastic grocery bag. Always have plenty around from shopping. That way, each string of lights can only get tangled with themselves.

I know the feeling.

I did mine several weeks ago lmao

About the only good use for an empty 3D printing spool is to use it for coiling up holiday lights, so you can uncoil them easily next year. On the other hand, my father winds them onto 2-foot lengths of PVC pipe. The resulting bundles don’t fit in a box, but it doesn’t matter.

Okay,now who’s gonna hold the ladder?

You are the one who put them away like that. The blame is on you.

Haha! (＾▽＾)