Nothing is more peaceful than standing on your front walk, barefoot, midwinter, at midnight watching snowflakes gently flutter to the frozen ground amidst twinkling, white Christmas lights…that the wife has been prodding you to take down for six weeks.
Confession: I like twinkly lights.
This time of year, here in Idaho, it’s dark by 5:00pm. And of course the days have already begun to lengthen. Most nights, I’m not in bed until midnight or later. That means for seven hours of my day everyday, the sun is shining somewhere between Hawaii and Japan, but certainly not in Idaho. Is it too much to ask for twinkly lights during that third of my day? Must their giddy evervescence be limited to the few weeks surrounding Christmas?
Perhaps the problem lies within their popular nomenclature—Christmas lights. What if we were to rebrand them as twinkly, winter, happy-glow lights? Or would that be received as a secularist attack on baby Jesus? What if we called them Baby Jesus season happy glow lights? Or would that put me firmly back in the same bind? [sigh]
I know some folk adhere to the more is less principal. At times, I do as well. But when it comes to my twinkly lights, I have to disagree. Leaving them up into February doesn’t make the Christmas season any less special. I mean, it’s not like I leave the Christmas tree up past New Years…anymore. That would be crazy, right?
Thanks to LED technology, new twinkly lights barely use up any electricity. So that’s no longer a solid argument. There’s no longer the same fire risk. That leaves us with the same bad-neighbor-argument the wife and I danced around while discussing our front yard couch for a few weeks this past Autumn (until some blessed individual finally took it). In this matter, I had a solid case for the first couple of weeks of January. Three of our neighbors still had their twinkly lights up as well. Last week the final neighbor crumbled under the pressure of MLK day and pulled down his lights. Now, it’s just me. Everywhere else on the block, the joy is gone. I can feel my happiness bleeding away into the static darkness all around.
Now the front of my house feels like an island of refuge amidst the dark, choppy waters of the world. Like a glittery oasis more mirage than reality. Last night I had a brief moment of worry that if I walked too far down the block, the lights would blink out and I’d never find my way back. (Maybe I’ve been watching too much German TV.)
I’m not saying we need to celebrate Christmas all year round. I’m just saying we need to be celebrating all year round. Or we should be celebratory at least. And when it’s fifteen degrees outside and dark for most of the day and night, twinkly lights help me celebrate life. What’s so wrong with that? Is it tacky to seek a little childlike wonder via tiny light-emitting diodes throughout all of January and into February? Is it tacky to wear socks with sandals? Is it tacky to dance poorly in public? Is it tacky to take your own tea mug into a breakfast restaurant?
Then, by golly, I’ll be tacky until the day I die. (Or at least until restaurants figure out how to make a decent cup of tea. We don’t all drink coffee, while judging those neighbors who refuse to take down their happy-glow winter twinkle lights until after the Super Bowl.)
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