Speed Lighting
In my house it is the job of the man to erect the tree and string the lights. The female is then free to complete the more delicate task of hanging ornaments. For the past ten years or so we have had an artificial tree, so my job consists of putting the 3 pieces together and then carefully fluffing up the 300 compressed tips into something that resembles natural branches.
The fake tree costs less and after 5 years of use, it is free in comparison to the real ones. You don’t have to shop several place to find the right tree because it is always the right size and shape. It is better for the environment, plus you don’t have the sap of innocent trees on your hands. The only downside is no fresh pine scent. This is overcome by hanging, intermingled with the ornaments, a dozen or so of those pine tree car air-fresheners usually hung from rearview mirrors of Camaros.*
Here is a tip that will make your tree lighting chores zip on by. This year it took all of five minutes to hang the lights on my tree. I no longer dance around it in circles as if it were a maypole, trying to get the strings of lights evenly distributed. Thanks go to co-worker, James Stanley, for this brilliant idea. Wrap your tree in those mesh lights designed for your outside shrubbery. For our 7′ tall tree we needed two of those 4′ x 6′ 150 light meshes. Here is a picture of the tree, apologies, as it seems the auto focus doesn’t work too well in the dark. Anyway I think it kinda looks cool in an abstract way.
*Just kidding about the air fresheners, for the past several years my boss’s boss has given everyone in the department a fresh pine wreath. We place ours on the inside of the front door.