If my Mamaw Jo could see some of the modern Christmas light displays, she would have said: “I swannie, I’ve never seen such new-fanged lights like these!” She wasn’t into technology. As for me, I recently discovered just how much I don’t know about Christmas lights either.
Mamaw Jo loved Christmas trees and would always put up hers the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I have done the same, that is until a couple of years ago. The tree Tim and I had was rather full and took up a lot of space. I’m talking we had to move furniture around to make room for it. That’s when I had an idea. I decided to put up our tree downstairs in the basement. For upstairs, I bought a pre lit pencil tree. These trees are slender and easy to set up and take back down. I thought Tim would be excited about not having to move furniture. Instead, he said: “But you don’t like pre lit trees.” Actually, it’s more that I love colorful blinking lights. I responded: “Why can’t we string a couple strands of blinking lights around it?” That’s what we did. When Christmas was over, I only took off the ornaments. Then Tim and I carried it back to my writing room where it sat until the next Christmas. That worked great until this year. When I plugged it up, the only lights blinking were on tip top. That may have been okay for some people, but not me. I needed all of the strands to blink. Tim reassured me: “It’s okay. I have plenty of blinking lights in the basement.” Too bad he was wrong.
Over the years. Tim has amassed a small collection of Christmas lights. Unfortunately, none of them blinked. He tried changing out some of the blinker bulbs. They still didn’t work, so we bought a couple boxes of blinking lights; or so we thought. When Tim opened the box, there were no blinker bulbs. I returned them and then I looked for lights on-line. Surely, I could find some simple blinking lights there. Nope. The lights that popped up were high tech ones that could be programmed. No just plugging them into the socket. Next, Tim and I went to a store that had a huge display of Christmas Lights. Once there, we thought we would buy a couple of boxes and be on our merry little way. We were wrong. Everything we looked at was like what I had seen on-line in that they were complex and had programs for blinking patterns. Also, there were bulb shapes that I had never before seen. Yep. They were new-fangled all right. To beat it all, when we asked the sales person about regular blinking lights, he acted confused and said he had never seen a blinker bulb. At that moment, I began to feel old-fangled.
“For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Malachi 3:6 (KJV)
Our world is growing more new-fangled each day. Rest assured; The Lord, our God, will never change. There will always be only one way to Him (John 14:6.) Also, He will never update the gospel or His word. Now, man will often try to do that, so be on your toes, pray, and know your scriptures.
We did find regular blinking lights. Then we bought a new-fangled Christmas tree to display outside. It was easier to assemble than I thought it would be. We placed it in front of our house and turned it on, but the star on top wouldn’t light. Tim fussed as he fiddled with the wires. I remembered seeing the tree’s remote control in the box. When I retrieved it, I noticed a button labeled “Tree Top.” I pointed it at the tree and pushed the button. When the star lit up. Tim said: “I don’t know what I did, but it worked!”
Brooke Cox is an author, speaker, and storyteller. She was a 2016 Selah Awards Finalist for Debut Novel. Her children’s book: “Dinosaur Eggs,” is now available. It is based on Ephesians 6: The Armor of God. Her novel “Until the Moon Rises: A Conniving Cousin Mystery” is also available. Also, she has two books out in her storytelling series: “Saucy Southern Stories.” The Amazon links for her books may be found on her website: brookecoxstories.com. Please feel free to contact her. She would love to hear from you.