It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

I began the other day by dragging up the artificial tree and the heavy bins of lights and decorations from the basement. The pre-lit tree is now a pre-dark tree with a string of lights out right in the middle section. The box says that when one light goes out, the rest stay lit. Christmas is the season to believe, but not when it comes to tree lights.

Maybe the problem is a bad fuse. They give you extras. I pick one up. It’s smaller than a single grain of rice. You’re guaranteed to drop it on the floor when you try to fit it into the quarter-inch opening in the tiny slot above the wire plug. I dropped it on the floor.

Instead I’ll run to the Dollar Store and for two bucks, get a brand-new set and wrap it around the burned-out set. Better buy two new sets. No big deal.

When I was a kid, when one bulb of the candle type Christmas light set burned out, the whole set was guaranteed to go dark. Then you had to find the bad boy in a string of 25 bulbs that were wrapped around a maze of other light sets through the big green jungle.

Here’s a scene from a holiday past.

We’re watching TV one night and my father yells, “Light’s out!”

I get a new bulb and stand up on the chair, facing the real balsam evergreen. I begin my search and recovery mission to find the dead light. I start to unscrew the first bulb.

“Ow!” I scream. As I blow on my burning fingers, I drop the hot potato into an abyss of needles and branches. The bulb is probably looking up at me saying, “I’m over here, you moron. I’m under the cheap plastic Santa ornament.”

Sticky tree sap glues two of my fingers together as I reach deep inside to the trunk, fumbling for the bulb I dropped.

“Ow!” I scream again. Another hot bulb I touch. I pull my arm back, and sharp pine needles slice across my skin, leaving a string of tiny red lines. I reach back in. I hear something fall through the needles. I hear glass breaking. That can’t be good.

“Thanks, bud,” says the shattered light bulb from floor. “Now two of us are dead.”

So I take two brand-new bulbs, a shiny red and a nice green one. I screw Big Red into the empty socket, and with the green bulb pinched between my fingers, I return to my mission. Back on the light string line, I unscrew an original bulb and then screw in the new one. No luck. Re-screw the original. Unscrew bulb. Screw new bulb. Re-screw original. Down the line I go. Unscrew. Screw. Re-screw. Unscrew. Screw. Re-screw.

About a quarter of the way down the line, my hand knocks a glass ornament to the floor. I hear the crash below. I look down and see a million little pieces scattered everywhere.

“Be careful, will you!” yells my father without taking his eyes off the TV. “Those ornaments don’t grow on trees, you know, and you better hope it’s not one of your mother’s favorites.”

“Ha ha,” I say sarcastically.

“You better sweep up the mess when you’re done, too. You don’t want your mother stepping on broken glass with her bare feet.”

My shoulders ache now. I reach back into the hungry mouth of the evergreen. Hot, burning bulbs stand in my way of following the wire trail wrapped around too many tree branches to count. Halfway down the wire line with no success, I step down off the chair and take a breath.

Bad move.

Now I don’t know where I left off. I have to go back to the first bulb and start all over again. Unscrew. Screw. Re-screw.

Five tries later, an alarm goes off in my head., “What if the new bulb I’m trying is no good?” I’ll have to try it with a set that’s lit.

“Ow!” I touch a burning light. Too hot. I get off the chair and return with a couple of tissues to wrap around the hot bulb so I can unscrew it.

I try my new one. It works. Of course I don’t remember where I left off again so I have to start all over again. Unscrew. Screw, Re-screw,

On my next to last bulb, the set of lights is ablaze once again. “Hallelujah!” sing the Christmas angels.

I step down. I’ve missed too much of the movie that I was watching to understand what’s going on.

My sister walks into the room.

“You better clean up that mess on the floor before Mommy sees it,” she says with a smirk on her face.

“Light’s out!” Dad yells. I snap my head and sure enough the top of the tree right under the star is completely dark.

I grab a new bulb from a box on the table. I flip it to my sister.

“Your turn now.”

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.