The Art of Buying Christmas Lights

When Christmas comes each year, people begin to buy decorations and gifts. Some people are smart, and they begin to shop very early. If you are one of these people, you can find great deals on all sorts of items, and you can skip the last minute shopping rush that is enough to leave the most kindhearted and stress free people feeling grumpy. One item that is inexpensive yet sometimes strangely hard to find are Christmas lights. Yes, really! When it comes time to buy Christmas lights, timing is everything.

You may be laughing at me right about now, but I’m not kidding. I have the worse luck when I go to buy Christmas lights each year. The problem is that I am looking for something special. Usually this means I want a strange color, or I am looking for a certain brand. Nine times out of ten I can’t find what I am looking for because it would seem everyone else was looking for the same thing. I tend to strike out quite often when I go to buy Christmas lights, so I decided I need a new strategy.

I found the Internet. Well honestly, I was well acquainted with the Internet, but I was not so happy about shopping on it for quite a while. I was worried about the security issues that pop up when you use a credit card online. Then I realized that if I wanted to buy Christmas lights that I really wanted, not just a few sets I thought were just ‘ok’, then I had better loosen up and give it a go. Sure enough, I found what I was looking for, and I now know where I need to go to buy Christmas lights when I find myself in need of a special color or length.

If you too are looking to buy Christmas lights that aren’t quite what you are finding on your local shelves, there are many places you can go. The Internet, as I mentioned, is a great place to find unusual colors and brands of lights. You may also try to visit a store in your area that specializes in Christmas decorations, lights, and gifts. You may find and buy Christmas lights there that you never knew existed. You may also visit high-end home stores to buy Christmas lights that you cannot find anywhere else. If you really want purple lights, and can’t find them in Kmart, you simply need to look somewhere else.

TOKYO (AFP) — For those who don’t mind splurging a bit this holiday season, a Japanese department store is offering a Christmas tree with 400 diamonds for a cool 1. Takashimaya department store chain is selling the tree — actually a small tower of preserved roses with a teddy bear — for a symbolic 200. The tree, which stands 40 centimeters (16 inches) high, features about 100 carats of diamonds from southern Africa and Australia, the department store said. The smaller diamond pieces “sparkle charmingly like morning dew on petals, while two-carat and three-carat pieces mesmerise admirers with their noble glow,” the store said in a statement. The tree is based on a design by Parisian flower boutique Claude Quinquaud.

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National Capital Region Police Office chief Director Geary Barias said the policemen would be assigned to busy shopping districts like Baclaran in Para

Pam Kinney has spent the past decade buying Christmas presents for children she never sees, packing the gifts in shoe boxes, and sending them to off to foreign lands through the Samaritan’s Purse international charity. She will be passing out some of the more than 7 million shoe boxes that donors from around the world pack each year to bring smiles to the faces of children who live daily with the affects of war, famine, natural disaster and extreme poverty. The following year, Kinney started spreading the word about the best Christmas presents ever - the ones that go to children who need to know that someone loves them and remembers them. When somebody participates, they’re back the next with friends, said Kinney, who speaks at church groups and community meetings and holds a luncheon each year where she distributes materials and explains the ground rules to a growing army of volunteers who take the information back and spread it further. Kinney and her crew pack the shoeboxes in cartons and then stow the cartons in a semi trailer at the Alexandria site.

Christmas is always a time to look forward to in any household. But what makes it all the more exciting in our household is the fact that the entire family comes together to put up the Christmas decorations. This has been a time honored tradition in our family from the past several years. In fact, I still can’t recall how or when it started, but it all probably came into being the day my grand father walked into the house with a mysterious gift box wrapped under his arm.

I was just a kid then, but naturally I was curious. So as he came into the house and proceeded to recline on his couch, we all (namely, my sister, brothers and assorted cousins) gathered around him to see what he had brought home. We were all secretly hoping that it was some candy, for grand father had a knack for sourcing the most amazing candy! But then, he was a man full of surprises and one could never be sure what he had come home with.

Grand father saw the twinkle in all our eyes and slowly (almost laboriously) opened the box to reveal – you would never guess – an antique Christmas decoration! What attraction an antique Christmas decoration could hold for a ten year old is beyond my comprehension even today, but to be honest, I was enthralled. Just seeing that antique Christmas decoration (don’t ask me how I knew that it was an antique Christmas decoration; my grand father told me!) made my little face light up with joy. Grand father then slowly proceeded to explain the story behind the antique Christmas decoration.

He told us how a humble pheasant in rural Russia had lovingly carved up a piece of walnut wood to make the shape of the antique Christmas decoration. He then imaginatively led us through the various things the pheasant must have done to create each of the unique features of the decoration till it took its beautiful shape and size. He also narrated to us how the antique Christmas decoration must have lain in some musty old attic till it was discovered by some shrewd relative or junk collector, who, having recognized its true value, must have sold it to the antique dealer from whence my grandfather bought it.

Even today, as we all gather around Christmas time to decorate the tree in our living room, we take great pride in the first of all antique Christmas decorations our grand father procured for us. Ever since we could afford it, one or the other of us has taken turns to buy some or the other antique Christmas decoration for the tree. But even now, the pride of place, the top belongs to the antique Christmas decoration – a beautiful walnut star – that grandfather bought.