What the hell is wrong with Christmas Lights?

I'm going to file all modern Christmas Lights under the category of "they don't make 'em like they used to."

My parents used the same strands of lights year after year after year. The old ones with the big bulbs that heated up to a zillion degrees and melted the snow for mile in every direction. Ah, the good ol' days.

Those good ol' days are GONE. Here is the saga of our lights ...

When we put our lights away last year, neatly packed in a labeled box, all 4 strands worked. When we took them out of the box last week, they were ALL BROKEN. Not one strand would light. What the hell happened to them? Did the evil Christmas light gremlins get them?

So, I went to Giant (gad) to get more. I bought 4 strands of clear lights. Of these 4 strands, one was broken out of the box, two were actually colored (even though the box said they were clear) and ONE actually worked. So, I went BACK to Giant and exchanged three of them for three more. Of these 3 new ones, only 2 worked. But we had enough to do the front steps. More or less.

Then, we decided to try some of the new LED lights on our big, outside tree. They all worked out of the box. Groovy. So we spent the time to put them on our big pine tree. They all lit up, and it looked great. For 5 minutes. Then the middle strand died. We have no time or energy to pull them all off, so I confess that our tree looks quite odd.

As I'm sure that these will all be dead by next year, I am starting to think ahead. Our ARC (Architectural Review Creatures) have decreed that all decorations must be "colonial in tone and nature" so I am thinking that next year we'll just decorate with candles and be done with it ... at least until the house burns down.