Christmas Lights

I don’t go all in for outdoor Christmas decorations, especially not the tacky inflatable eyesores that Americans seem to prefer.  It's not a big deal because my home isn’t visible from the road, but I do have some lights hanging outside my front door.  They are basic cheap lights that I’ve had for quite a few years, so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they stop working.  And sure enough, today I noticed that a large section of the string wasn’t lit up – it was working when I first hung them up, but not now.  I tried replacing each bulb in that section one at a time, but no luck.  I don’t know if there is anything else I can do to try to figure out the issue – I didn’t notice that a squirrel or a raccoon or something had chewed through a wire – so I think this particular set of lights is done for and is going right in the trash in January.  I've just ordered some replacement lights (better, but still cheap), which I should probably have waited until they were on sale because I don't think I'll get them before Christmas.  Fortunately the section that isn’t working is at the end of the string, and the string is long enough, so I can kind of readjust how I hang it up so that the dead section is on the floor and the lighted sections hang symmetrically around my door.  But it still makes my “effort” at putting up lights very shameful, especially as my landlord next door (or at least one or more of his sons) has put up some very extravagant decorations that I don’t remember them having in years past.