When Things Break

This is how our Christmas tree currently looks. Pretty pathetic. This seemed to be the year of malfunctioning lights. Within minutes of my completion of lighting the tree (it only took about 3 hours and maybe 12 strands of lights) one of my darling children fiddled with the lights and knocked out a strand in the middle of the tree. "Not to worry." I told myself. "I'll fix them in a few days." It never happened.

We had lights that fell from the roof. And then more lights that went out on the stairs. By Christmas, another strand of lights has burned out on the tree. And on Christmas Day I watched another strand burn out. Oh well.

Maybe all the lights going out sent bad vibes to our other things. Our van wouldn't start up when we were headed out for a trip the day after Christmas. After a prayer, Clark managed to get it started and to the repair shop. We were on the road 2 hours later. During those two hours, we discovered the TV was not working. It took it upon itself to turn off whenever we turned it on.

The kids decided to then entertain themselves playing the piano. I discovered another broken note (in addition to the one we already have) while attempting to practice the other evening. Our piano is definitely on its last legs. It is only about 65 years old.

When we got home from our trip and plugged in the Christmas tree this is how it looked. The kids still insist we need to keep it up and turn on the lights.

The kicker for me is this: the kids just think we can easily replace a broken TV or a breaking piano just like we replaced the toaster that broke this month. Buy a new one.