Merry Stinkin' Christmas!

Early in November we experienced some really nice weather here in Smootville.  There were some days when the temperatures climbed toward the 70-degree mark, so I figured I'd do the unthinkable:  I decided to get our Christmas lights up early so I wouldn't have to hang them later on when it was cold out.

I was pretty excited about taking care of our outdoor illumination project, and I got the approval from Mrs. Smoot to go out and purchase brand new lights this year.  In the past, our lights have driven me fairly berserk because I'll hang the highest ones on the house (which involves the ladder and a very long poking stick) and then half of the them will go out at random places and random times.  It happens every year, even with brand new icicle lights.

This year I decided I wanted to get the new LED lights.  There are a couple advantages of having this sort of light, compared to the traditional ones.  For one thing, they're reliable.  They basically never burn out, and have a life expectancy of 20 years or so.  Plus they use only about 10% of the electric used by older lights, so they'll actually pay for themselves after a few seasons.

I found a good sale on the LED lights, and I traveled an hour to a store to get them.  And then I got 'em all hung on the house.  Ta-da!  Even though Christmas was over a month away, I felt a special holiday glow when I got the project finished.  At least until the following Sunday morning when I headed out to church.

Much to my surprise, some idiot had stolen one of the strands of red LED lights right off of one of my freakin' bushes.  It was obvious that it had been hastily yanked off the bush, leaving another strand behind it, out of place.  Who the heck steals a single strand of Christmas lights?

I immediately began figuring out ways to thwart morons from taking additional ones.  I thought about rigging up some sort of surveillance camera, or somehow electrifying our bushes so anyone who touched them would get a nice holiday jolt of amperage.

Instead, I went through each strand of lights and used plastic tie-downs to securely fasten them to each bush.  If someone wants to steal my lights now, they'll have to go through some serious extra effort, involving the sophisticated know-how involved in operating a pair of scissors.  Ha-ha on them!