Review on Cow-themed Kurt Adler 10-Light Indoor/Outdoor Light Set for a Charming Ambiance by Nate Ducey

My mother loves cows. I don't know how the thrush craze came about, but it inspired her to choose her clothes, paint her house and car (now it's a white Mini Clubman with cow spots all over her body). So this Christmas I made a cow theme. Cow socks, cow pottery and these cow lanterns. I didn't consider it a gift, more like an ornament. I stayed up until she went to bed and started decorating our Christmas tree with these garlands. I started unpacking them. What a pain in the ass. The box they arrive in is plastic covered with a thin sheet of cardboard (like a headband). However, this cardboard packaging does not simply slip off. It would be too easy. It's glued to the front and back of the plastic, making it almost impossible to remove without damaging the cardboard or just ripping it off completely. I wanted to keep the packaging in case the bulbs break so my mom can keep them later. I don't know why this cardboard sleeve couldn't just slide back and forth. I managed to peel the plastic off the box and remove the sleeve. Then I tried to remove the cover. It has been sealed on all four edges. Not the tape that can be torn off, but the one that detaches from the nail, leaving shavings of tape behind. So I cut off the tape. Removing the plastic cover was another frustrating exercise in the thinking Olympiad, "it's unnecessarily complicated and they should have done better for almost $20." pushing the plastic from the bottom. It might seem like a small thing, but it was 2am. I'm tired of surprising my mom while trying not to make noise. That's not easy with plastic. The packaging of the lights themselves made my task almost impossible. I went into the bathroom and turned on the fan, hoping no one would hear me. Trying to put out that light was terrible. Where you didn't expect it, there is duct tape (same as above but seems very sticky). The fade-resistant plastic looks like it's real mold that will hold onto individual cows as if pulling them out would pull them through a real cow's birth canal. Folding the plastic was pretty nerve wracking until the cows I was releasing started banging against each other as I tried to unravel the umbilical cord that connected them. Cows were tangled around other cows and when I freed the cable and the cows they were tangled again. All the time that rickety plastic rattles and rattles and my frustration fills the bathroom. By repeating this process with the second pack, I ended up producing 20 cows to decorate our Christmas tree. That was the easy part. It takes some play to keep the cows from being upside down next to the decoration, but the cows aren't very difficult. Now to the cows themselves. The roughly $20 per box wasn't wasted on the packaging. These lights are great. They are detailed, with pink noses and sharp edges around the spots. They are fully 3D, which I couldn't tell from the photos here. When lit they give off a lot of light and the cows do an excellent job of dimming that light and spreading it nicely around the cow and on the surface they are on. Each pack comes with 4 (seemingly) standard replacement bulbs, but all my cows have caught fire without them. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of our garlands, these are not LEDs, but they are beautiful. As hard as I try, I can't take a star off for the packaging. It could be slightly improved and I hope it is. But my frustration came from having to do it quietly, and most people don't have to. Luckily my mother didn't wake up until the morning and saw these bright lights and was very happy with them. Biggest smile I've ever seen and it was beautiful.