Phillips family worldwide adventures: Electricity Woes

We left our large appliances and cars behind. We knew we'd have to. But somehow, we were still clinging to the notion that we could still use some of our belongings. A prelit Christmas tree for example. Why not? We bought some power converters and were on our merry way to decorate the Christmas tree. Plugged it in along with two deer and all was well... or so we thought. After a couple of hours the light bulbs started going out, one strand at a time. We thought that we could still remedy the situation and started changing out the lights and fiddled with it for a week until finally all of the lights were out. It would have made one very sad tree without lights so Chris and I came up with plan B. We took a day to cut out all of the prelit wire and bulbs. Once we had a bare tree again, I set out to the store to find the perfect lighting for our little tree.

An easy task turned out to be a tough one. It appears that in Croatia it is "in" to have blue lights on the tree. I'd say about half of the sizable selection featured blue lights. Finding sufficient quantity of plain white ones was quite challenging. Then, they had at least 5 different types of lights. There were what they called "rice" lights, which were tiny, then "cherry" lights which were larger and round (cute looking too), then regular lights, LED ones, indoor ones, outdoor ones, rope lights... Then there were nets and different quantities and arrangements... Took me some 45 minutes to find what we needed. Another interesting fact that I've learned is that they don't sell strands that plug into each other. Chris couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. My sister couldn't believe that you could buy some that actually plug into each other. See the trend here? I am not entirely sure how people decorate then, especially larger trees. One thing that all of the lights did have though, was a small box at the end of the strand with at least 5 different light settings. That gets you covered, whether you want the frantic seizure-causing blinking or a gentle fade in and out mood-setting lighting. We got it all now people!

I ended up choosing two largest nets I could find hoping that they would cover the tree and provide reasonably nice lighting. What do you know. It took Chris and I just a few minutes to cover the tree, and after all the fuss and effort, the tree lit up and looked perfect. Then we finally proceeded to decorate it.

We've been enjoying a beautiful tree since. We cut out the wire and bulbs from the deer as well and strung new lights on them too. They look great as well. Light controller box on the strand of one of the deer is a little messed up though so we can't choose the setting. Lights on it are now blinking on and off in a spastic manner but it all still turned out just great.