1998 december 09

light up my life

last night gene and i indulged in yet another of my yuletide rituals; we went to see the suburban lightshow.

i love christmas lights. i don't care if they are christmas vacation tacky or martha stewart immaculate, i just love the silly things. i love those streets where all the smiths are keeping up with the wilsons who are keeping up with the joneses and their 10,000 light twinkle-o-rama. i love those streets where every house but one is dead and light free but that one, that glorious one, is all aglow with the season. i like the cul-de-sacs that decorate with a theme: santa's workshop, or march of the tin soldiers, or the nutcracker suite.

gaudy over the top lights are a distinctively american thing. you might see a discrete strand around a window in germany but you are never going to see santa and his eight tiny reindeer, and don't forget rudolph, on top of a red tiled roof in bavaria. there may be a wreath on the door of the house in perth australia but you won't see icicle lights hanging from every gutter and a giant frosty the snowman on the lawn; at least you wouldn't have when i was there, things may have changed in the last few years.

you also don't see nearly as many extravagant displays in the american city. nope, the place to be for the true christmas light show is the suburbs, and preferably the wealthy subdivision type suburbs. you know, the ones with names like hunter's glenn and conroy heights and i'm richer than snot enclave.

so last night we hopped in the car and cruised slowly up and down streets for the better part of an hour. we saw santas and reindeer and elves and snowmen and nativities. we saw lights thrown haphazardly around bushes and lights anally metered to cover trees in perfect symmetry. houses with each and every edge outlined in twinkle bulbs and houses with one single tree covered in the big old fashioned sort. multicolored lights, all green lights, all white lights.

my favorite? a giant rather old fashioned house with a columned porch, completely covered in red lights. every door, every window, every column, all red. every bush in the yard, every tree, there were even strands of red lights outlining the sidewalk. all red except for the door, where bright white lights spelled out the words ho ho ho. i almost wet my panties, i was laughing so hard.

gene didn't get it at first.

"what exactly are you convulsing about?"

"ho ho ho, don't you get it?"

"get what?"

"red light district? ho's? get it?"

"even amidst all this christmas cheer, you still have your mind in the gutter"

i am tempted to line the walls of our bedroom with tiny little red lights while gene innocently works in his office.

deciding just one little strand around the window wouldn't hurt, claire