Christmas Creeper: Minecraft

Christmas Creep: When the timer on your tree’s lights can’t keep time properly 

Christmas Creep...when you find a guy dressed as Santa Claus sitting in the bushes in front of your house.  

So back to my point...

I've stated before that I'm an engineer, and engineering is little more than the art and science of laziness.  I am therefore lazy.  As such, when it's tome for Christmas, I like to maintain an air of festivity, but at a minimum of effort on my part.  I have gone to certain lengths to make sure this happens.  

I, like many people around this time of year, have lights outside my house.  Because of the house's design and the landscaping, it is remarkably difficult to reach the eaves on my house without a large extension ladder and preferably, somebody to hold said ladder when I'm climbing on it.  Because of this level of nonsense, I do not hang lights from my eaves.  I have four spotlights that shine red light onto the front of my house, lighting the whole place up for the holidays.  Christmas...done.  

Moreso than that, I have this entire setup hooked up to a photo sensor with a timer.  I don't even have to turn the lights on...they turn themselves on when it gets dark and turn themselves off 7 hours later.  Laziness...done.  

Inside, I have candle lights in each of my front-facing windows.  Photo sensors on all of them.  They turn on when it's dark, turn off when it's light, and I don't even have to think about it.  Candles...done.  

And I have my tree.  400 cool white wide angle LEDs, 100 multi-colored wide angle LEDs, 20 color-changing LEDs in the star topper, and I'm ready to go all Corey Hart, wearing Sunglasses At Night while my tree is lit up like the surface of a small star.  Do I put any effort into this on a daily basis?  If you've read any of my drivel to this point, you will know that the answer is a hearty and full-throated "of course not!"  All of that stuff is on a timer which turns on at 5:00PM and turns off at 11:30PM.  Tree...done.  

That is...until the tree turns on at 5:45...and 6:15...and 7:00....wait, what?  

All of my hard work getting to this nirvana of holiday laziness undone by the fact that my tree's timer can no longer tell time.  

I need a new timer.