FFF - Battle of the Christmas Tree

So a few years ago, the day after Christmas, I fought the crowds and got a really nice Christmas tree for a really nice price. It was big and full and exactly what I wanted, and much closer to the price I thought I should be paying. It was prelit - which my lovely friend Jenelle warned me about, but I had never had a string of lights go bad so I had to think that it would last many years.

Fast forward 2 years, seriously, to Christmas 2007. I'm excited, my baby is now two and totally loving the Christmas lights and ornaments, etc., and I plug my tree together and bam - 1/3 of it lights up. I do everything I can, I change every fuse, I try every set of lights plugged into an extension cord as opposed to each other thinking maybe that will help and nothing does and I come away with scratched arms. I sigh knowing Christmas trees are at their peak demand (and price) and go to the Dollar store and buy some strands of lights to "light" my pre-lit tree.

Now it is Christmas 2008, I still can't justify spending the moolah on a tree, ours isn't that old, it's pretty, I like it, I know what I'll have to pay to replace it, oh yeah and only one of the strands of lights worked when I plugged it together this year. I get the bright idea, to take all those strands of lights off of my prelit tree and make my own prelit tree.

Don't mind the fact that the tree is sitting on my sewing machine box, I'll never understand why they make the branches go all the way to the ground. Also keep in mind that I haven't fluffed any branches yet so this tree really is very full and beautiful - well except for the lights not working thing.

This was my tool for this endeavor - which I'm thinking will be a piece of cake - hahaha, if only I would have known.

I begin with the little tip top section thinking I'll get it all figured out on this section that way the bigger, harder to work with sections will be a little easier. I'm thinking it won't take long to get them off, but that since the lights are all clipped on I will have to snip some here and there.

See all those little pieces, see the fact that it probably took close to an hour, this is why people buy prelit trees and don't make them. Every single tip has a light, every single tip has a clip that the strand of lights is attached to, I think I might be perfectly fine, at least for another year, ghetto non-working lights on my tree and the strands of working lights strung right on top of them!!

Anyone want to come help?

I'm not sure if this post really qualifies for FFF, but since there's no theme I guess it can, since it's friday. Check out more FFF posts here.