My big frustration this week has been my outdoor Christmas lights. I am into my third day of what should have been a 30-minute project. I decided to string only one set of lights this year, and I assumed that at least one of the three strings stored in my basement would work.  Only half of the lights on all three strings lit up, so I spent half a day trying to piece together one good string. Failing at that, I chucked the entire mess into the recycling bin and went to Target to buy new lights. The new string must be five feet shorter than my old lights, because it doesn’t reach as far as I thought it would. I ended up sticking an illuminated reindeer in the dead space, hoping that passersby might assume I’d done it that way on purpose. Finally the gizmo that is supposed to activate the lights at nightfall doesn’t seem to work. As far as I can tell, it arbitrarily turns the lights on and off. I’m going to throw it away, too, and now I’ll have to go outside every day to plug in and then unplug my feeble display.

For Christmas, Clare wants money for her upcoming trip to Asia, and Manyu wants a bunch of skincare products that she’ll pick out herself. At least those stressors of the holidays are taken care of. 

Steven Simpson