Today’s scheduled post is a thought about lights, particularly the Holiday-type ones that blink, twinkle, flash, and burn steadily.

They are everywhere this year.  Last year, in 2020, the Holidays seemed to have been an afterthought, or no thought at all.  I don’t remember seeing much in the way of decorations, let alone lights.

This year, it’s a different story.  In my neighborhood, practically everyone on my block, homes are decked out with those blinking, twinkling, flashing, and steadily burning colorful lights.  One house even has those tacky plastic snowmen and blowup penguins in the front lawn.

There are those dancing light patterns flying across people’s garages.  There are dripping lights on trees that look like melting icicles.  One house has nothing but blue and white lights.  Some houses have marquee-type lights outlining their gables.  Another house is lit up like an airport runway, including bright flood lights lining the long driveway.

The plaza in town here is also over-the-top:  a twenty-foot tall artificial tree lit with a thousand blinking colorful lights.  Wreaths with battery operated lights hang on every establishment’s door – the Great Hall, the coffee shop, the spa, the diner, the governmental building.  Garland flutters in the gentle breeze as it hangs wrapped around pillars, intertwined with strings of flashing lights.  Lighted plastic icicles hang on eaves.  Giant white reindeer made from wire are lighted with bright white lights.

It is as if people are trying to make up for the Holiday that practically wasn’t in 2020.

I like it.

©2022, excerpt from “Holidays on the Edge”