It’s Christmas time again and I, like many people, hold on to that old concept of decorating the house with lights for the holidays. There are traditional lights that are clipped to the gutters or strung around the frame of the house or a lonely tree giving the neighborhood a light show and National Grid additional profits.
I’ve wrapped my shrubs in green lights with red lit berries one year and followed with a multi-colored mess the following Christmas. It looked like Snoopy’s dog house from a Charlie Brown Christmas.
When we were young we’d drive around and look at the houses in different neighborhoods. This was well before the “Lights on the Lake” drive-thru Christmas light display. It was fun to see how imaginative people were with their designs. There was something quite personal in the attention paid to detail.
And then there are those displays that prompt me to say out loud, “what the — what?”
I now have a game I play called what’s the gaudiest Christmas display I can find on a home. To heck with Lights on the Lake for a moment and look at the fun you’ll have.
My favorite displays have to be the ones that can’t decide between “the reason for the season” — the birth of Jesus or let’s be off the hook fabulous. The off-the-hook-fabulous displays make me smile and laugh out loud.
Imagine, brightly illuminated images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Joseph, Santa Claus, Frosty the Snow Man and assorted Elves all in the same fenced in yard.
For the second year in a row I’ve decked the house and shrubs in blue energy saving lights. These are accented with twinkling blue and white stars. I hear children say “Ohhh” as they walk by at night.
The other day a woman who rides a bike stopped and commented on my lights and how she would like some blue lights, but she had no National Grid service. But just in case she said, “Take this change. It’s all I have. Can you buy the lights?” I took the change and combined it with my own money and bought her blue Christmas lights. And then I took time to thank God for what I have and vowed to stop complaining about what I don’t have.
So, this Christmas season remember that no matter how bad you may feel sometimes, a simple blue light can make all the difference in the world.
