How to Untangle Christmas Lights

Frustrated about your tangled Christmas lights? With a little patience, you can have them untangled in just a few minutes. Here's how!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Tangled Christmas lights

1. Examine the tangled mass, and locate one of the ends. If there are several connected strands of lights, unplug them from one another.
2. Instead of tugging on the end, look at where it goes, and push your end into the first loop of the tangle. Untangling is just putting the free end through a series of loops - it just takes patience.
3. As the free end gets longer, gather it into your hand as you push it through loops. Gently loosen each loop to allow the free end to get through.
4. Soon the free end will be longer than the tangled end. By this time, it should be loose enough to easily untangle the rest. If the tangle is particularly tight, you may need to find the other end, and work from that end toward the middle, until the entire strand is untangled.

Tips & Warnings

• When you put the lights on the tree this year, tuck them loosely among the branches, and try not to criss-cross the strands of lights. This will make them easier to remove later.
• When you remove the lights from the tree, start where you finished, and work backwards. Wind the strand neatly onto a strip of cardboard for storage, and next year your Christmas decorating will be a snap!