A Guide To Seasonal Exterior Lighting

1. No matter how many strings of lights you packed away last year, you will need more.

2. (1) is always true because many of the lights that were working when you packed them away last year will not work now.

3. (2) is always true because holiday lights are designed this way: the entire string works the first year. Two-thirds of the string will light the second year. By year three, you might as well just pitch them—they either will not turn on at all, or they will blink on and off.

4. Because it seems a shame to waste the functioning portions of “year three” lights, you will arrange, bunch up, and wrap them around themselves so as to conceal the dud, or unlighted, sections. This is a bad idea, because just when you have completed these gyrations, the entire string of lights will go out, and you will have to unwrap, unbunch, and rearrange.

5. Whether you use brand-new or older lights, they will all stop working within a few hours to a day of when you’ve finished putting them up. You will have to take at least a portion of them down and start again. Guaranteed.

5a. Corollary to (5): even if you chose to hang your lights on a beautiful, mild day, by the time you have to rework the lighting arrangement it will be minus 5 with wind chill. And you will need to take your gloves off while you’re working.

6. “Dad, you taught me everything I know about exterior illumination.”*

My parent’s next-door neighbor, Mr. Jim, often went with a monochromatic lighting scheme (my parents were strictly multicolor). Many evenings, after dark, my Pop would sneak over and change one lightbulb, inserting, say, an orange amid the unbroken line of blue. Mr. Jim would watch out for him, and when he left, would quietly come outside and replace the discordant orange bulb with a blue one. It amused them for years.

*Clark Griswold, in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

7. Outdoor seasonal lights are not optional, despite any inconvenience they may cause.

8. Happy, happy holiday season, and may your lights shine brightly all the year round.