The Decorating Drama Continues

So, as the title implies, the decorating drama continues.

See, the problem is we don't have any outside electrical sockets. Which means we can't have any outside lights unless we want to somehow run an extension cord from the house to the outside which leaves the door open to cold air not to mention murderous criminals intent on anti-Christmas mayhem.

And one of us might be willing to risk that but the other is pretty convinced he would be ripped from sleep three or four times a night as someone poked him in the side and hissed, “Did you hear that? Did you hear somebody in the house?!"

The long and the short of it is, we don't have any outside lights and everyone else in the neighborhood has outside lights--including the annoying neighbors next door and the new ones across the street who don't even manage to notice a Halloween bag on their door for 3 1/2 weeks...but I digress.

And I should clarify, that we didn't have any outside lights.

Until this week when I got the brilliant idea that some lights are battery-operated and don't need to be plugged in at all and could probably be found online and delivered, thus avoiding any dealings with the wild hordes of Christmas shoppers crowding the stores.

At that moment a tiny voice in my head suggested that it might be good to consult Opie on this as he is much better with most things electrical but then I thought ‘Seriously, they're lights. How hard could it be to order some stinking lights? Plus I figured we might be nearing the edge of Opie’s Christmas cheer as he has already been a pretty good sport about dressing up like Ralphie for the Christmas card (more on that later, I promise!) and agreed to a holiday party.

So I found these adorable timer activated battery operated Fairy lights and immediately ordered two sets.

Anyone note the problem with the previous sentence? Because I didn't catch it until the lights got here.

Fairy lights.

And fairies, for those of you who have never seen Peter Pan, are tiny.

Not small, TINY.

This is the box they came in:

 
And these are the lights themselves:

Some people would take one look at these lights, realize they’d made a terrible mistake, then not even bother to open them,  just pack them up and send them back for a full refund.

Those people are quitters.

But, ever the optimist and definitely no quitter, I said to myself “Self,” I said. “Maybe they’ll look better once I get them wrapped around the porch railing.”

Which was a complete disaster.

I mean, you would think something as small as fairy lights would take no time at all to set up. Unfortunately, call me paranoid, but I’m pretty sure there was a tiny invisible fairy flying around, grabbing the lights when I wasn’t looking and trying them into ridiculous knots.

Ok, yes, this is supposed to illustrate the knot
but LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THOSE MINI BULBS.

Which led to some very  un-Christmas like swearing I can assure you.

Which convinced two rather ridiculous dogs that I was being attacked on the porch and needed their assistance immediately. Assistance that came in the odd form of hysterical barking and demands for treats.

Which led to more un-Christmas like swearing mingled with shouts of “Shut up, you mongrels! Shut up before I kill you!”

Which, oddly, didn’t do a darn thing to quiet the dogs but no doubt convinced the neighborhood that A. I’m mentally unstable or B. I’m getting a stocking full of coal this year. Or both.

In any case, the real kicker is that after all of this, we are still about one string of lights shorts from actually covering the entire porch railing.

So now it looks like I started to put up the smallest lights in the history of Christmas lights, got bored (due to my aforementioned mental instability, no doubt), and just stopped. Which means the real dilemma is, what do I do now?

Leave the lights and tell people I got my decorating inspiration from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Island of Misfit Toys?  Order one more string of lights, based on the theory that ridiculous lights are better than no lights at all?
Or do I pack them up return them get my money back and be the only house in the neighborhood without lights the rest of the Christmas season while the rest of the neighborhood jeers and points and laughs at us behind our backs?

Or do I just pour myself a glass of wine the size of a human head, wait for Opie to notice the problem and scream “Why do I have to take care of everything for Christmas? You fix the lights if they mean that much to you.”

Honestly, it’s like the problem just solved itself.