When January comes, and everyone goes back to work or school, there is a tendency to move on from Christmas. Trees and wreaths dry up and begin to lose their needles; you need to clear them out if you don’t want pine needles to be still turning up in your carpet when your grandchildren have grandchildren.
Some people feel like they can’t really get started with the new year (with its new resolutions, diets, and fresh starts) if they leave all the Christmas decorations hanging around until Valentines’ Day. So pretty much every house on our street has taken down (or at least turned off) their Christmas lights.
Every house except ours.
You can see Daniel and David on the porch, if you squint, and use your imagination.
Well, actually, there are two other houses on our street that still have lights. One is right next door, which makes me smile. Maybe houses are like people, and they prefer not to stand alone against social pressure.
Even the garage is festooned with lights and bows.
This year, Kathy went all-out in lighting the porch and the bushes. She picked up a few of those pretty star-lights at a garage sale this past summer, and I think the house looked very festive. So I am feeling a bit stubborn about allowing the lights to be taken down — after all, who says you have to stop celebrating Christmas in January?
I really like the red bows and the star lights.
We have a fake tree (which makes Joshua sad), so we don’t even have to worry about the needles. There is something about coming down the stairs in the dark of the morning, and seeing the lights shining on the tree, with all our red, blue and gold decorations gleaming happily — it warms a deep, quiet place in my heart that remembers all those Christmas trees of past Christmases.
I think many of us wish we could recapture the special way we felt about Christmas when we were young children, and we’re always disappointed that we cannot ever really experience the full range of that innocent wonder. I suppose we can’t feel that way anymore because we are jaded by disappointments and the slow attrition of the years on our souls. Having a Christmas tree shine a few extra days (or weeks) is my way of resisting that hardening of the heart. And yes, I’m still listening to Christmas carols on Pandora as I write this blog post.
Sooner or later, Kathy’s love for variety will kick in, and she’ll insist we take down the tree and the outside lights. But until then, Christmas still reigns.
It may be a fake tree, but I still love it.
One of my favorite Christmas movies is A Christmas Carol (I prefer the version with Patrick Stewart, but I don’t mind watching any of the other six renditions that we have). I have always aspired to be like Ebenezer Scrooge in his redeemed form, and this quote about him is what I would like people to think or say about me:
His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him. And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
Project 365, Day 17
Tim
