Nick Jimenez

Sunday, December 12, 1999

Christmas is magical - but, oh, those lights

All these Christmas lights depress me. They are bright, they're colorful and they sing of the joy of Christmas.
   And each one is a reminder that we have yet to light one lousy Christmas bulb at our place.
   Each year we tell ourselves, this year we're going to put the block to shame. We'll put up Santas that ho-ho-ho in live stereo, we'll have jolly snowmen to flash "Merry Xmas" into the night, we'll have white lights, and red lights and green lights, all twinkling in synchronization that would put the Rockettes to shame.
   Maybe the lights remind me of Christmases past. And no matter how old we get, we're kids again in the glow of the Christmas lights.
   But each year, we're doing good if we manage to put up a lonely string of twinklers by Christmas Eve, the missing bulbs giving our fa‡ade a gap-toothed look that mocks our puny efforts. The Charley Browns of Christmas house lighting.
   I stand in awe of the Christmas light artists who festoon their lawns and roof eaves with holiday artistry, whose works are worthy of being singled out for recognition on the front page of the Local section of the newspaper. Children must be brought from far and near to witness these electrified greeting cards, their little mouths open in wonderment.
   If they came to our place, these kids would stumble into the bushes in the darkness.
   It's not for lack of trying. But when you get so far behind in getting out your Christmas cards that your face is on a poster with a red slash across it down at the post office, and you are still working your ways down through the A's on your gift list on the 23rd, and you're convinced the price of Christmas trees is sure to drop if you wait just one more weekend, well, the lights seem to fall in the cracks.
   I used to have nothing but contempt for those folks who brought in the pros to do their Christmas lighting. I'd sooner have had a plastic tree as have one of these hired purveyors of holiday lights put up my display.
   Well, I'm beginning to see the wisdom of "outsourcing" Christmas - and those plastic trees are looking pretty good, too.
   Still, I'm not ready to give up the intention of putting up the lights.
   For years the high point of our display was our luminarias. Come to think of it, it was plastic, too, and lit not by candles, as tradition would have it, but by Central Power and Light. Of course, most of the time, half of them were tipped over by wind or dogs. The little bags grew tattered and crumpled. Finally last year we decided that our investment, 20 bucks tops, had given us good service and we retired it.
   R
   emember Chevy Chase in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," and his dream of having 125,000 Christmas light bulbs? That's the vision I have in my head. One huge glowing ball of Christmas burning so brightly that even the turbines at the power plant will have to turn just a hair faster to produce enough power. All in the interest of the Christmas spirit, of course.
   I see displays all over town that are equal to anything that Chevy Chase produced. They are marvelous and wondrous. Even the grimmest Scrooge has to give in to Christmas when the lights of Christmas are twinkling so bright. These are house lighting displays that says these folks are really into the Christmas spirit.
   We'll get our lights up nonetheless. We won't win any lighting prizes and very few passersby will say "Aaah" when they go by.
   But Christmas hasn't really arrived until you string the lights on the tree, or throw the switch on a few lights on a window or a branch. You have to let the kid in yourself enjoy Christmas again.
   (Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787, or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com)
  
  

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