One Man’s Cheery Twinkle Is This Woman’s Garish Blight

Last week, when it was still November, I saw the light.

It was the first light of the season--it had to have been--and it was red and bulbous.

When it caught my eye, and then both of my eyes, I noticed that it was joined by other lights, must have been hundreds of them, which made me turn my whole head in their direction.

They were a blur of happily integrated circuitry in red, yellow, green and blue. They looked loud, seemingly shouting at me, “Look at this roof!”

I looked, of course, actually doing a double take, and not only because those lights were certainly attention getters, but because the roof they illuminated happened to be only a few doors down from my own, unilluminated roof.

Let me pause here to add that I realize that I am treading on thin ice. Christmas lights, it seems, are a very personal thing with Southern Californians.

I know this because last year about this time I wrote a story about Christmas lights.

I thought it was a nice story, sort of funny, about this neighborhood in Fountain Valley that went all out for Christmas.

I quoted neighbors who gave over their entire yards to twinkling lights, Christmas trees, snowmen, teddy bears, reindeer, gingerbread men, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Snoopy, Santa, and just about everybody else but Scrooge. Christmas in that neighborhood was really a big deal.

It was certainly a fine, happy scene, and the streams of kids and their parents who stopped by to ooohh and awwwe just loved it.

But I also talked to a neighbor who didn’t think it was so great, a man who didn’t want me to quote him by name because he feared retribution from those in the holiday spirit.

Seems this man didn’t appreciate all the gawkers driving around his usually peaceful cul-de-sac, and seems he didn’t appreciate the apparent scorn engendered by his own less-than-opulent Christmas display. (A few strings of lights twinkled discreetly from his trees.)

Of course, the neighbors, this man said, would never ‘fess up to pressuring anybody. But he felt it, this man said. He seemed to hear their whispers through the walls.

Well, ho ho ho, let me tell you about the holiday cheer that that story brought me. One woman wrote a 2-page, typed letter to my editor, which among other things declared that I was evil, God-hating and childless, all of which, for the record, is false.

Another reader said I was mean-spirited and cynical, and quite a few others more or less told me to go to hell.

So, I do know what I’m getting into here. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to offer what may be an unpopular opinion: This Christmas light stuff is getting way out of hand.

I like lights, believe me, I do, especially the twinkly ones. But these days, it seems that to really prove one’s allegiance to the holidays, nothing less than a full-house wrap will do. And have you noticed how, in some parts, Christmas is coming to town even before we’re through with Thanksgiving? In my neighborhood, at least.

Last year, in fact after I got the Christmas hate mail, even I began to worry that maybe the wreath hanging on our front door just wasn’t enough. So my husband and I took our then-16-month-old daughter for a nighttime drive though a glowing neighborhood near our house.

I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t depriving her of any Christmas spirit.

But my daughter fell asleep en route. And I felt a lot better.