Christmas lights don't work

IT'S TIME FOR that annual tradition of Joy To The World, Good News To All Men and Where The $%^#$# Are The Christmas Lights this year? Yup, it's decoration time at Second String Music.

The first thing we do is find the tree. It's usually in a back room or on one of the floors above. This year, it was on the third floor and there were only two or three spiders living in it, an improvement from previous years.

Bob and Anne Mays gave us this tree about 10 years ago. It is still alive in all its fake glory. The lights usually work for a year or two, and then we get new ones. I swear we got new lights last year, and when I went to plug them in yesterday, about half of them worked.

"I gotta go to Lowes anyway," Sheryl said. The good thing is that we took all the lights off and Sheryl straightened the branches so it wasn't so Charlie Brownish.

Then there's the box of decorations. There are tons of ornaments, most involving Elvis and guitars. A lot of stuff got moved in the back this past year and I had no idea where the box was, but Sheryl did and I dusted it off. The obnoxious Santa playing "Merry Christmas Baby" was quickly delivered to the coffee shop next door, and all the others seem to be intact and in good shape.

Also going up yesterday were the strands of lights below the ceiling. These lights are a few years old but they seem to all work. Putting lights up involves inventing new swear words appropriate for Christmas ("I'll tell you where to put your yuletide you #%@#$#@" was used a few times) and using a wobbly step ladder to hang the lights. Also, untangling the lights takes as long as putting them up. I distinctly remember trying to be extra careful last year when rolling them up and it did absolutely no good - they were still a tangled mess.

Anyway, we'll be putting on the tree lights and ornaments this afternoon and it will be all ho ho ho and Christmas cheer around here until I put everything away and can't find it next year. So get in here to enjoy it while you can!