Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott for December 09, 2023

Well Darryl whatever floats your boat.

To Daryl, untangling them is like solving a Rubiks cube. He enjoys the challenge.

Lighten up, Wanda.

In January, he could get an empty spool from an electrician and wrap lights around it. That might not fit as well in the attic.

Fair point there from Darryl. She should just leave him to it.

They make spools for those, even. My husband coils them up like a hose and stores them in round tins. They uncoiled without tangles.

He’ll probably electrocute himself before he gets half of them put up.

Next time use a larger container, Paul!

You have only yourself to blame, Darryl. Wanda, just leave him to it. Shut the attic door lest his language be heard by the kids.

Every year after Christmas, I put them away neatly, and every year before Christmas when I bring them down, I find they have rebelled and formed a giant knot.

That’s why I got a tree with lights attached. I’m not dealing with that nightmare anymore.

remember it’s @ before # except after $

She has one eye with two pupils. Don’t expect a lot of insight.

Send him down to tractor supply and buy a hose wheel.

Being the designated detangler and bulb tester as a kid trained me to put this stuff away neatly.

Hopefully the kids aren’t in ear shot, especially Hammie. FFFFUUUUDGE! No lug nuts involved.

Suspend the ball of lights, as is, and call it the star that guided the dudes bearing gifts.

Across the room from the Festivus Pole of course.

it doesn’t’ matter how well you attempt to store the lights. They will always end up in a tangled mess.

Packing it up early I see!

It never mattered how carefully we stored the lights when I was younger; they would all end up in one gigantic snarl. Later on, I stored each strand in a large freezer bag. Now I have a nice fiber optic tree.

Hey guys! Why put them away? Christmas is not come yet.

1) Go to your local hardware (or, as a last resort, home improvement big-box)

2) Find the extension cords (outdoor ones, 25’-100’ range; household ones are probably elsewhere)

3) Look around until you find the reels they sell for winding a bunch of cords on and buy a few

4) When you take down the lights, just wind them onto the spool and Bob’s yer uncle; my 2 spools held several thousand lights

You do it Wanda.

My husband does it the same way :)

Santa will find out if Darryl’s been knotty or nice.

Darryl, the fact that it’s the best way to deal with fitted sheet sets doesn’t automatically mean it’s also the optimal technique for storing Christmas lights.

Our holiday tradition is me making a giant bowl of coleslaw for 16 people and forgetting it in the basement fridge :-D

That is the one tradition I can do without.

Even when you TRY to put them away neatly, it’s almost guaranteed that next Christmas, those lights will have reverted to their natural state of tangled anarchy.

Funny

Some holiday traditions deserve to be reverently pulled out, gazed at, stomped on, shredded and reused as fire starters. This time put them away after carefully packaging them.

“If I get stoned and sing all night long…”

I When I had a house I used to; take them down, separate each string. connect the string to itself. fold to fit a plastic grocery bag. tie the bag loosely. put the bags in a box.

He just doesn’t want to be told what he already knows.

I’d be outta there! Leave him with the mess he created!

Darryl uses this to exercise his capacity for patience and forbearance in preparation for the trials the holiday season will put those qualities to.

What is it that Lucy van Pelt said about traditions?

Here ya go Wanda. Show me how it’s done. (later) You did a great job! It’s all yours from now on.

“If you don’t like how I do it, then let me suggest that you take over the job.”

I do put them away neatly. They ball themselves up. And half of them break in storage.

Take a thin, flatter piece of wood and wrap them around it . . . it is not hard!

Actually he did, but some nasty elves…..

Anyone have a holiday tradition that is aimed at anticipating next year’s holiday season rather than augmenting this year’s? I always watch the Simpsons episode “Kill Gil Vol 1 & 2” with the last of my Christmas leftovers. To me it very nicely illustrates that the festive spirit rapidly diminishes once the holiday is past, but also includes a dramatic reminder that the season will come around again.

I wonder whether there IS a neat way to put away Christmas lights.

They make “light wheels,” where you roll the lights around a plastic wheel, and they don’t tangle. But Darryl doesn’t care. He likes to make things harder for himself.

No, she doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter how neat or careful you put them up. They somehow always come out tangled like they were in a hurricane.

Haha! (＾▽＾)