Light the lights!

Christmas Lights

“Christmas waves a magic wand over the world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”

                                        Norman Vincent Peale

Is it just my imagination, or are there fewer Christmas lights this year? There used to be one house up the street from me that always lit up in such profusion, that my sons referred to it as the “landing pad for the Mother Ship.” This year, there's nothing. I've seen far fewer inflatable yard Santas and bulb-enhanced twig reindeer. My across-the-street neighbors and I haven't even put up a tree. You can tell who has grandchildren and who doesn't. We don't.

I'm not complaining, believe me. I've always been stumped by what all that electrical wiring has to do with Jesus. And people who 'light up' don't seem to be able to do it tastefully—it's an all or nothing proposition. Maybe this is part of the green revolution—no one wants to pay those high power bills that result from glowing day and night for a solid month.

There is one Christmas shop 'over the mountain' from here that is keeping the power company in business. There's every color and shape of light imaginable plastered on the outside of the building, and big, moving arrows directing you into the store. As though you might miss it. It looks like an explosion in a fireworks factory. They are eating up their profits by the second trying to get our dark world back to its normal gaudy self.

After two years of non-stop dirty political campaigns and months of watching our elected officials act (and look) like Statler and Waldorf on the Muppet Show, nobody has the will or the energy to hang a celebratory light. It's so depressing, maybe we're secretly hoping the Mayan calendar is right, and we'll all drop off more than a fiscal cliff next week. I mean, who wants their yard to look like the entrance to the mall when the end comes. That would be so tacky.

Anyway—there is always next year—or perhaps not. I, myself, am happy to have an unlit Christmas. Then my house doesn't looks so dark and different. Bah-humbug!

                                      In the spirit,                                           

                                         Jane