Fairy Lights - just say 'No'....

In front of me is a big black box.  Well, it's not really that big, it's about...ooohh....this big.  See?  Not that big at all.  But the contents.... I shiver and my skin grows cold.  The sun fades from the sky and crows line up on my windowledge cawing and mouthing 'Nevermore'... the moon rises like a badly-baked bun over the horizon... for the contents of the box are enough to strike terror into the hearts of anyone who comes into close contact.

For the box contains...

Dah dah duuuuuummmmmm.....

Christmas Tree Lights....

Yes, those agents of peril whose very proximity can reduce an entire household to swearing Neanderthals, who trailing wires have been the downfall of many an unwarily carried pudding; whose bulb-failures cause the emptying of complete cupboards, whose random power-fluctuations can blow so many fuses that the resultant Christmas Dinner has to be cooked the following day and, in some extreme cases, next door.

Those Christmas Tree Lights.

They want you to believe that this is the effect you will achieve. That your Christmas tree will illuminate hearts and minds alike and cause a sympathetic glow on the faces of all who come into contact with it.

What you, in fact, get, is this:

With the possible addition of a few smouldering jumpers, their knitted Santa motifs gently blazing, and the cat strolling through the wreckage picking off the remaining pigs-in-blankets.

I know you want the best tree imaginable.  I know you have the image of the perfect Christmas in your head and that it features a beautiful fir tree, branches inexplicably dusted with frost despite the near-Hadean temperatures reached by your central heating, sweetly twinkling lights causing murmers of delight among the children who kneel amid the parcels at its base.

Do us all a favour - just say 'no'.  Hang the branches with light-catching decorations made of tinfoil (which will terrify the cat and ensure it sits on the outside of the windowledge making resentful faces at you until at least the beginning of January).  Scatter the branches with glitter, generously decorate them with glass baubles that gleam in the firelight.  But, if you love your family and don't want the police and Jeremy Kyle to be your close attendants in the New Year, for the love of God don't get fairy lights.

Signed:  One Who Knows...