Scrooge Says Scroo the Christmas Lights!

A cacophany of color dripping from house to house, flowing over roofs, front yards, covering bushes and wrapped about tree trunks, I cannot avoid the Christmas lights. How did they get all those lights up there? How long does it take to perform the feat? Do you know there are professionals who can come to your house and install all the lights you want... for a price?

Of course the lights are not alone. Angels, stars, reindeer and Santa proliferate, and oddly shaped lawn sculptures I cannot identify. A sordid carnival of grotesque artifacts soon to be forgotten in someone's garage for the next year. I cannot appreciate the simple beauty of what once was. Am I too blind to see? I avert my eyes.

I count in my head the possiblity of how many watts are in each bulb, how many kilowatts in each string, how many strings of lights are used to blanket a house, a yard, a neighborhood, a city, a country. A house at 1953 Eucalyptus street in San Carlos, California has a December bill of $5,000 according to the news. For 5,000 dollars one can buy a lot of LED lights! All the houses on the street, it seems, participate to have the show of decorations. It's such a popular neighborhood that it is closed off to traffic and you must walk to see it.

How much is it all costing? I don't mean just in our electric bills, but how much fossil fuel does it take to maintain Christmas? Am I Scrooge counting money, overlooking the value in the significance for the overabundance of Christmas lights?

Disconnected Christmas Season

I feel like I just dropped in from another planet, when I consider what's going on around me. A television show this evening was about one character searching for the meaning of Christmas. Where have I heard that one before? I am in a similar situation, searching for what is meaningful about this time of year that everyone is so involved in. I mean no offense, dear reader. I find some folks are so stressed by keeping up with traditions and social norms I wonder if it is worth it. I truly feel disconnected and outside, looking in, on what now appears so unfamiliar to me.

Bah Humbug doesn't even sum it up. It's more like what the heck is going on? At one point in my life I was very absorbed in Christmas with all the trimmings. I started my Christmas shopping in January, when everything was marked down and continued to shop throughout the year. I had a long list of people I bought gifts for. Those gifts sat in my closet waiting for the momentous occasion when someone would unwrap them, eyes aglow, and smile with satisfaction. Though that was not always the reaction I saw, I still felt good for my succeeding in providing a gift for everyone. And best of all, I thought, I wouldn't be stuck in last minute shopping hoards exhausting myself. Just the same, as the clock ticked down I found myself shopping. One cannot have a successful holiday season without stocking up on all those required food items. Then, of course, someone must prepare all that stuff, and someone must also eat it, not only at home, but at every opportunity that arises.

Today, I spent the afternoon with some friends in festive attire and shared great food and conversation. Lots of laughs and hugs accompanied the fun. This can happen any time we would like, and I wonder why we just don't do it more often. Do we really need Christmas season as an excuse to get together and have fun? Surely not. We were all dressed up in the colors of the season, red and green. Have you ever noticed that?

There seems to be an unspoken agreement among us that certain colors are to be worn at certain times of the year. Valentines day brings on the red and white. Easter has pastels. Red, White and Blue for Independence day. Black and Orange for Halloween. Brown, yellow and orange for Thanksgiving. I really don't look good in orange, nor pastels, either. I gave up dressing up in the appropriate colors a long time ago. It had no meaning for me to just go along for the sake of appearances.

Are we all pretending to have a good time so that we don't spoil another persons good time? Are we not pretending, but just caught up in the mania and following the flow of what others do? If so, then, are there others who wonder about all this besides me? Maybe I'm missing something here.

I know that getting together with family to party surely counts highest on the meaningfulness of the season. But, I'd like to believe that getting together for a family party is meaningful any time of the year.

It's not just the parties. The one I attended was lovely. But, how many parties are obligations? I overheard someone the other day say that she had 3 events to attend over the weekend and she was hosting another and it was all a nightmare for her to juggle life and family in between all that. We are not even into the second week of the month yet? Where do we draw the line?

Unlike the character in the TV show, I'm not searching for the meaning of Christmas. I'm wanting to understand how much meaning others are getting out of it all. Perhaps, then I wouldn't feel like such a Scrooge.