Have you ever busted or destroyed Christmas lights?

No, I don't mean intentionally slamming defective strings in a garbage can - I mean *ACCIDENTALLY*.
Prior to this evening, I never have. I just did, about 55 minutes ago.
See this web page for the gory details.

For those who do not wish to visit the web page, here is the dirt:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: 12-04-06
I found out the hard way that the globes are made of glass - several of them became broken when the light set fell while I was attempting to hang them in a window a few moments ago this evening (7:39pm PST 12-04-06).


Here's a photograph of the two broken bulbs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have never broken Christmas lights. In fact, I have never hung Christmas lights. Actually, I've never even touched Christmas lights.

Us Jews get to play with FIRE on Hannukah! :nana:

I have melted a few in my time. I liked to look at them all bunched up for a nice bright multicoloured glow but I left them that way for too long and when I came to hang them up they were stuck togehter.

I think it was a mistake for my brothers to buy me a bb gun. I've taken out my share of lights on my own house as a kid. I still remember the spanking. lol

I keep trying to tell my mother the lights only last a year, ours never make it through a year of storage.

~John

When I still used incandescant lights outdoors, I've dragged them across the driveway and damaged some bulbs hanging them up. There was also placing one foot of a step-ladder on the string itself and crushing a bulb or two.

I had one LED socket on an older Forever Bright set get crushed when I ran it under the roll up garage door and it happened to get in the way. I just bent it back into shape and soldered the LED in there to make it stay.

There are a few sets I have up that have one section out which I couldn't fix. I just cut those sections off and attach a cord or socket to the end so I have a set with half the lights as the original.

I'm old enough to remember the cheap-@ss light strings that would go out if a single bulb was loose or burned out. Having gone through a few of those older lights, I haven't put up Christmas lights in over twenty years.

And I'm afraid I'm not about to start now. :laughing:

TigerhawkT3 said:

I have never broken Christmas lights. In fact, I have never hung Christmas lights. Actually, I've never even touched Christmas lights.

Us Jews get to play with FIRE on Hannukah! :nana:

Click to expand...

its a Jewish ceremony to light up bonfires on christmas?
bring lights


busted...no

destroyed? a few, left them on in pouring rain, guess the fuse box wasnt waterproof

tripped over them? too common...

spend 2 hours hanging them up... "trip" and that 2 hours worth of shifting ladders just went down the drain

What a bummer, Craig. Well, at least we get to see what the LEDs look like!

I've accidentally broken plenty of C9 bulbs by allowing them to hit the concrete, or, in the case of ceramic C9 bulbs, simply from gripping them too tightly while screwing them in! I hate those ceramic bulbs.

I miss those heavy glass C9 bulbs from G-E, especially the ones where the glass is made into a swirled flame pattern.

Illum_the_nation said:

its a Jewish ceremony to light up bonfires on christmas?
bring lights
...

Click to expand...

Well, it's for Hannukah, not Christmas, and we light candles, not a bonfire. Still, that's fire - a great excuse to whip out a lighter and bury those little wicks in combustion! :devil:

I just like fire, is all.

As a matter of fact, probably several hundred in my short career as a juvenile delinquent. I guess it was in that really out of control stage of pre-teen adolescence, when the Halloween holiday tradition of foisting someone's carefully, lovingly carved out jack-o-lantern above your head and smashing it in their driveway gave way to the Christmas vandal's passion- going from house to house and unscrewing handfuls of the large glass globe bulbs and scurrying off to throw them high into the air, to hear their glorious pop! pop! sound as they broke on the pavement.
Only the statute of limitations now allows the telling of such dirty secrets. I am the kid who got sent home and you were grounded for a month when I brought over an M-80 and we blew the lid off the cesspool that you kept in the backyard for dog doody. I'm sorry your family couldn't use the yard for a month until the smell went away.

I was also one of those "juvies" that occasionally broke things just for the sake of breaking things.

I remember when I was 13 or thereabouts; me and a friend climbed a tree at the Nugget Mall in Juneau AK. just to unscrew those C9 Christmas bubs from that tree and throw them for the sole purpose of hearing them go "Pow! Pow! Pow!" as they struck the asphalt of the parking lot.

I however was NOT responsible for flushing a lighted M-80 down a wall-mounted porcelain urinator in the ground floor south boy's bathroom at Juneau-Douglas High just to see the fixture become blown off the bathroom wall. This occurred in approximately 1982.

PhotonWrangler said:

What a bummer, Craig. Well, at least we get to see what the LEDs look like!

Click to expand...

I'll have to snag a photograph of the LED itself, as it's rather unusual looking.
Thank you for the suggestion. :thanks:

Guys... let's not let this thread stray off to the realms of describing childhood illegal activities. To be honest, I figured that's where it would go when I saw the first post.... :tsk: :tsk:... Craig, you should know better... :tsk:

UPDATE: 12-05-06
I liked these lights so much that I purchased another set of them a short time ago this morning. I believe I paid $6.99 for them, so I got more "bang for my buck" this time around - that is - they were on sale.

I'll probably hang these across my room rather than in a window, so if they do fall, they'll land on plush carpeting and not become broken like the set last night did (two of the bulbs hit the tops of glass insulators in my windowsill and got busted that way).



UPDATE: 12-05-06
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, a same-day update.
Here is a photograph of the LED in one of the light's globes.

I remember when me and my Dad were stringing up Christmas lights when I was about 4 years old.
I somehow had the string of lights in my hand when a blue colored bulb right in front of me stopped working. :huh2:
So, I shook it a few times.
It flickered back on a couple of times.
So encouraged, I shook it a few more times.
That was when bright sparks "POP!" flew out of it's base much to the surprise of my Dad nearby.
He picked up the string of lights and took them away from me then.

These things are not toys for small kids to "hands on" play with.
Christmas lights are still indeed 120+ volt appliances.

Interesting, Craig. That is an unusual looking LED. Thanks for the picture!

Sams club had some christmas lights this year in blue/white/multi colored sets. I purchased a set of Whites. I should have also bought a set of the blues as well!. Those two went quick. The sets do not have bulbs on them and the LEDs also look similar to Craigs picture. It helps push the light out the sides. They are 3 sets of 60 lights. I have one set where half of the lights randomly go out. A short somewhere in a light on that half of the string.

These are like the foreverbrights that come in replaceable sockets. I just havn't had the time to go through each of the lights in that section to see if one of them have a short.

Sasha said:

Guys... let's not let this thread stray off to the realms of describing childhood illegal activities. To be honest, I figured that's where it would go when I saw the first post.... :tsk: :tsk:... Craig, you should know better... :tsk:

Click to expand...

I'm very sorry that the thread topic drifted off...it was not my intention for the topic to change to "childhood illegal activities" like throwing light bubs or dropping M-80s into lidded cesspools.
Please accept my apologies.