My dad did that - he noticed that he could get a $5 string of lights that blinked, 2 that didn’t blink and it did what he needed for the size tree the house could fit. He would buy them in the after Christmas sales and hang onto them until Christmas rolled around again. He would also get the cheap bulb decorations in a couple colors. The only decorations he saved and reused were a star topper, and some 12 or 15 German blown glass antique ornaments that have been in the family for a long time. My favorite is the peacock.
When we end up building our final house, we will be having a small central entry hall with an antique phone stand in the center that will hold a small basket for mail, during the holidays I want a conical spiral with small hooks to hold the glass decorations and the topper. I like this one, but it holds 40 ornaments and I am not entirely certain the base is heavy enough to be stable. I just don’t hold with chopping a tree down to decorate with, and I really don’t want a fake greenery tree. I do want to have some nod to the season and I think a wire tree fits the bill.
I don’t have a problem with the lights being tangled; I roll them up carefully and never have a problem unrolling them the next year.
My problem is that they rarely seem to work for more than one season. This year, I pulled out four strings of lights, all of which were working perfectly when I put them away 11 months ago. One string was still good, one was completely dead, and the other two were only half-lit.
I bought some plastic hoops designed for this purpose, which fit down into duffel-bag looking zip-up bags. I may have gotten them at Target.
The real problem, though, as Suburban Plankton notes, is that they quit working from year to year. I usually end up getting them all out, discovering they don’t work, and buying more. I’ve got a pretty big tree and it annoys me to buy 10 new boxes every year.
I have another tree that’s pre-lit, and you can just replace the bulb that burns out. MUCH better system.
Has anyone else noticed they don’t seem to last as long as they used to- now it’s usually only a couple of days until bulbs start burning out, and I’ve resorted to putting them on dimmer. Don’t know if this is the cause or the result of a lot of people treating them as disposable, or a consequence of cheap as possible Chinese junk, or they’re trying to be brighter than the competition so they burn the bulbs at higher voltage.
For the big C9 lights on the house I actually like to get the new old stock, they seem to be brighter and don’t loose paint as fast as the newer ones.
My solution to tangling is to put each string individually in a plastic shopping bag.