Lit-Up Christmas

Light the Lights!

“She turned down her street once more, glaring at the garish lights someone had put up along their house. Might as well light up their roof with “Santa Park Here”. Sheesh!”

            Dana Marie Bell (The Ornament: Simon and Becky)

I went on a “Wacky-Tacky Christmas Light Bus Tour” last night. It was a fund raiser for a fresh air camp for children, and let me tell you, it lived up to its name. There's nothing like Christmas to bring out the red-neck in even respectable people. We saw houses on which not one square foot of space was unlit. One long house in the posh-posh section of Birmingham, wrapped along the entire length of its lot and attached, by way of  a covered portico, to a guest house. Every inch was decorated front and back and the yard was filled with illuminated inflatable creatures. There was Santa, of course, and Rudolph, the Grinch and a penguin playing Slammo with two pop-up pups, and many more I'm trying to forget. I saw more inflatables than I knew existed. One family had even constructed a walking tour, complete with lit up signs and arrows, lest you miss something from the street. The bus tour lasted two excruciating hours, y'all. It was obscene!

I have to say, I don't get it, but that may just be bah-humbug ol' me. I try to put myself into the head-space of someone who will work for weeks to put up all those strings of lights and run electrical lines to fifteen different inflatables, and then many more laborious days to take it all down. And where on earth do they store it? You'd have to rent a storage locker all year long to house all the stuff you put up for one month in winter. I definitely would not want to receive their January utility bill. I ride by thinking about what all that investment could do in the hurting world—must be my mother's Scottish blood running through my very practical veins.

If you're a Christmas-lighter-upper, I'd like to hear what it means to you. I guess it doesn't have to mean anything other than enjoyment of outrageous excess, but we spiritual seekers like to find meaning in all sorts of things. So let me know. As for me, I'm sticking with my one little forged-metal tree and my one string of lights. I'll bake Mother's Pecan Sandies, and call it Christmas.

                                In the Spirit,

                                      Jane