We pulled out our huge, beautiful, garage sale, $20, pre-lit, 9 foot Christmas tree on Friday. What was supposed to be a day of happy Christmas decorating, turned into a stressful day of frustrated attempts to get our Christmas lights working. Most of the lights on the tree were working, but unfortunately, there were dark sections of unlit bulbs that kept poor Stephen occupied for hours. Hours. Eventually, he took the lights off the top section of the tree. Have you ever tried to un-string lights from a pre-lit tree? It’s incredibly tedious! The lights are fastened to the branches every couple of inches with tiny plastic clips. After taking off two very long strands of lights, he definitely did not feel like tackling other parts of the tree.

Our pre-lit tree was not the only problem on Friday. Without testing the lights first (which is a REALLY dumb idea), I put three strands of lights on our small 6 foot tree in the front room. Then after decorating the entire tree, I plugged in the lights and discovered the top strand was only half lit. Yet another battle of Man vs. Christmas Lights ensued.

(One happy decorating moment: Silas’s mini tree.)

Saturday morning wasn’t much better. At least this time I tested the lights in my pine garland before decorating with it. However, once I had the garland set, I plugged in the lights, and half of the lights were out!Enter Light Keeper Pro. This innovative tool saved the show.Stephen had found this tool online on Friday, but I was skeptical of it. By Saturday, I was reluctant about him buying it from Lowe’s. Saturday afternoon I was in love with it!

Light Keeper Pro’s packaging claims that it “fixes light sets.” That sounded too good to be true. It’s actually four tools in one. 1. Bulb Shunt Fixer 2. Voltage Detector 3. Bulb and Fuse Tester 4. Bulb Puller. As Stephen found out on Friday, when a Christmas light goes out, there is a small shunt that should allow the current to continue to flow to the rest of the strand. Usually this shunt malfunctions, but the Light Keeper Pro will fix that shunt to allow the rest of the strand to light. Amazing! Does it work 100% of the time? No. Is it worth the $18? So far, the answer is a definite yes!A few notes about our tree: 1. Notice that the bottom of the tree is undecorated? We commemorate this section of the Christmas tree to Silas Clark. 2. There really is a star at the top, but it’s such a shiny silver, that it disappeared in the picture. I think stars are the best tree-toppers. 3. Remember the 6 foot tree I mentioned earlier? It is packed up in the closet. As soon as he saw it, Silas promptly started un-decorating it for me.

Hope your Christmas decorating is happy!