Any minor Festive Fuck-ups yet?

[lucysmam]

Someone <ahem> decided to go and buy new lights for their 6.5ft really bushy Christmas tree today...and they decided 1000, on a 10m cable, from The Range, is plenty for this tree (bear in mind, their old ones are 600 on a 22m cable).

Dear Reader...

10m of lights, no matter how many are crammed onto it, are certainly not enough for a giant tree. They just about cover it's bottom half...if they're spaced very far apart <sigh>.

And I can't even couple them together because I lose the white and blue from the new set if I do that, and they don't quite sync properly <BIG SIGH>! So now I either put old on back/new on front, slightly out of sync OR I bus back to The Range to once again browse their many and varied aisles of festive lights 🤔 (I cba to bus back tomorrow & really want to decorate by the way).

My dad offered a sensible solution - he will collect 2000 warm white lights, in the morning, when he goes for garden centre cafe breakfast. But they're white. Not coloured. And might not even be enough! I need about 3bazillion metres looking at this!

Any other minor Festive fuck-ups going on? 🎅

Thank you! It’s a superb pattern, with meticulously clear instructions - designed so that anyone with pretty basic knitting skills can make it - but an awful lot of work!

Amazon opened in Ireland this year... Praise Jesus 🙌 I bought youngest DD all her toys, I was a bit bored, thank god I was bored and decided to put the batteries into all her toys and save doing it Christmas morning, well........ Everything speaks french !!!!!! WTAF !!!!!!!! Ok having had a more detailed look and clicking a gazillion tabs SOME say french. Why ? Why ? Why ? I've yet to meet an Irish person who speaks French. I'm going to have to send them all back 😭😭😭😭

Is she in East 17?

If it helps reassure anyone, last week I found the presents I hid for Christmas… 2022!

DD went Christmas shopping and stupidly left all the presents she had bought in the boot of her car overnight. Of course, her car got broken into and all the presents stolen. Well, all but one present… mine. Clearly it wasn’t of any interest to the thieves as they decided not to bother punching it!!

One from a few years ago…

Spent over an hour untangling our outdoor lights that DH had done a very poor job of putting away neatly the previous year. Plugged them in to check they worked, no outdoor socket so plugged them in inside and fed the wire through the window as usual, all fine. Spent a very long time in the pissing rain and freezing cold putting them up around the outside of the house, nearly fell off the ladder a few times and had countless arguments whilst doing it. Finally finished and switched them on, they looked great. Went back inside the house and DH slammed the window shut and severed the bloody wire. I had NO words.

Ooohhh...... I'd have had to walk straight out the front door and keep walking 😂😂

Hi Lucysmam I just saw this post of yours:

My friend also sent me a link for a thing on amazon that is a circle with strands of lights that's cheap & might do to bulk them out a bit. She's bought one so I'll wait and see what she thinks first.

I bought some last year and they were really excellent, so this year I bought some for our other tree and they are equally good.

But when they arrive each strand will be separate and wound on itself so all you do is pop the circle over the top twigs, undo each strand and let them cascade.

However when I took them down last year I just rolled the whole thing around a piece of wood like I usually do with lights, When I took them out on Tuesday they were a completely tangled bunch of 14 long strands. I am generally patient with unravelling lights but after two hours I wasn’t getting very far. As soon as I separated a single strand it latched onto its neighbour and refused to let go. They seemed to have a life of their own and I suspect they spent the last year in a frenzied orgy of silent wiry sex. DH wanted to bin them. I sent for a packet of rubber bands from Amazon and when I got a strand free I rolled it up and secured it with a band. It took ages but it did work and when we got the circle positioned and snipped each band the cascade was very satisfying.

There must be a better way of dealing with this but when I take both sets off in the New Year I will use the rubber band technique unless anyone here has another suggestion.

Said dog mentioned earlier ate a chocolate Father Christmas at my my neighbour's house whilst I was helping her change a dressing at the weekend.

£96 later at the vets...

That's my forte, it usually appears around easter.

Not mine but Amazon, DH present arrived in a box saying what it is on the outside. Luckily I got to the post first.

Honestly HOW do people afford pets? I know there's insurance but crikey it's expensive being a pet owner

Also lost a present luckily only fluffy socks from Tesco

I found the jumpers! However I've now realized I have way more presents for DD than DS, probably because at 13 he is in that weird in between age where he doesn't want toys but isn't yet demanding expensive clothes etc.

In October,it was our 10th anniversary so we arranged to go see darling mil and go places (Hampton court Palace and tower of london) while using her house as a base (we live in the midlands and she lives in kent)

All arranged and we where all looking forward to seeing each other

3 days before we are due to set off,she collapsed at home,was rushed into hospital and had to have an operation (which isnt good when your 78 years old)

Cue frantic panic to get to hers (while cancelling all plans) and thankfully shes fine but needed to go into a nursing home until she could have a stair lift installed and it was touch and go if christmas would be cancelled as the company where saying they couldnt install it until the first week of January (it's a weird set of stairs)

She couldn't go home until it had been installed as she couldn't manage stairs

Thankfully,they pulled their finger out,installed it and we had her home last week

Breathes sigh of relief

Then,my ds messages to say toddler dgd is ill and has had to be rushed to hospital

Which means we may not be able to do our traditional meeting at a random Christmas market (they live up north)

Which is fine as her health must come first (and we can go see them in the new year) so am very worried about her as whatever it is has knocked her for six

And I cant find one of dps presents

Honest to god,ill be glad when it's all over

I was planning to make sweets for gift bags/tins and I made coconut sand instead of coconut ice. Getting a bit fed up of coconut flavoured sugar on my cereal and got so discouraged I haven't made anything else.

I have a 13 year old with an early Jan birthday. I feel your pain.
However I have some plans from this list, though it's for 9 year olds in theory I think some will hit the early teen spot.

https://busytoddler.com/gifts-for-9-year-olds/

That sounds rough, @Unicornsatonalilo. No wonder you want to see the back of Christmas.

Oh dear. The tree. We’ve been away for a few days so I bought a cheap Lidl Christmas tree before we went.

It’s now installed and decorated and I can tell you that at £13.99 we were robbed.

It is a sorry sight, very lopsided and with a distinct lean.

I’m on the brink of hauling the Balsam Hill monstrosity down from the loft but can’t quite face the upheaval.

Serves me right.

DS did a click and collect for my present at our local Waterstones. I know this because he told me that when he went in the assistant said "Oh, there are 2 orders under that name, these are rather contrasting books, aren't they?" They then proceeded to show DS a book I'd ordered for him and not picked up yet.

DS finds this hilarious, of course.

Just realised I haven't got BIL anything yet 😆 Off to the golf shop tomorrow then...

Most years I buy everyone special cards then forget to write in them, or write them and leave them in a pile somewhere, so I'm putting reminders EVERYWHERE this year (and will inevitably forget something else instead).

Made my Christmas cake and forgot to put the butter in it!

You do not need to know about the near-disaster and close-to-fatal Christmas tree putting up earlier in the week. It was raining, so the tree was wet, my tiled floor was wet and I had to chop the trunk to fit into the tree holder with an axe with a wet handle. There was so much slipping and sliding and near leg amputation that I must have looked like an It's A Knockout game.

Please tonight bring them into the house. Theft from locked cars is not uncommon and much more likely than your house getting burgled. It's very risky leaving anything of value in the car and insurance will be much less than if they are in the house - i speak from experience! It would be devastating if your dc gifts got stolen.

Our new cat cat peed under the christmas tree... luckily only one present was affected and it had a separate plastic wrap under the wrapping paper