Home by Christmas, Maybe

Had I known what I was in for, I’d have resisted more.

I’d have fought her in the dining room, in the kitchen, on the front steps and in her garden. I’d have never surrendered.

Locked in traffic for 2 1/2 hours to see lights is not my idea of kicking off the Christmas season.

We glared at each other from car to car, swore under our breath and made obscene gestures. Horns honked. Children cried. And the radio played, “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas. . . . “

Let me start from the beginning.

It was a pleasant Saturday two days after Thanksgiving. We had eaten, in the American tradition, until we were numb. I was lying comatose on the couch. Cinelli was reading. Suddenly she said, “We ought to go see the lights.”

I should have been alerted. In such casual statements, danger lurks. Once she said, “We ought to go to Africa.” Only weeks later I was facing down lions in a safari camp.

I said, “Sure, OK.”

She said, “We’ll gather everyone together. It’ll be real Christmasy.”

As a rule, I don’t like real Christmasy. I feel the same about Fourth of July fireworks. Christmas is a merchant’s holiday. The Fourth is for pyromaniacs.

But I wasn’t thinking, so I said, “Sure, lights. Christmasy. What the heck.”

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Sunday, 7 p.m. we pulled off I-5 into a line of traffic going for the Los Feliz offramp, there to begin a crawl toward the DWP Light Festival in Griffith Park.

It is a mile of lights that attracts about 500,000 each year. They come to oooh and aaah, never having seen lights before, and to listen to “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas . . . “ played over and over again.

Driving inch by inch toward those lights, I had the feeling that up until that very moment my mind had blanked out. I don’t remember getting there. It is a form of amnesiac magic that Cinelli practices to get me somewhere before I have time to realize I’m going. There is no time to object.

“Where am I?” I said. “What is this?”

“It’s called fun, dear,” she said. “The grand start of the Christmas season.”

“I don’t like fun. You know that.”

“It won’t last.”

There was no traffic control. None. Cinelli was driving in order to give me no option to squirm my way out of line and drive off. As traffic cut in, she gave way, allowing them to do so. I yelled my objections.

“I’m just being kindly,” she said.

“The devil with kindly, smash into them!”

Christmas music came from all directions, including our car radio. “Silent Night,” OK. “The First Noel,” passable. But “Holly, Jolly Christmas” was driving me crazy. I could visualize it being sung by a fat little Santa, wagging his head from side to side, his red nose aglow, his beady little eyes twinkling. Have a holly, jolly Christmas. . . .

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8:40 p.m. We reached Crystal Springs Drive. Traffic merged from three directions. A sign said, “40 minute wait.”

“This had better be the best light show since that comet smashed into Arizona,” I said. I wasn’t sure it was Arizona. Perhaps it was Texas. It should have been Florida.

The rest of the family followed in a car behind us. We could see their heads bobbing happily, like creatures in a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

“They’re having a wonderful time,” Cinelli said, putting a happy spin on a long evening.

“They’re young,” I said. “Age will embitter them.”

8:58 p.m. Another sign said “30 minute wait time.”

“I see lights!” Cinelli said.

“They’re taillights of the murderous traffic,” I said. “Or maybe a mirage. Sometimes in miserable situations the mind twists into chaotic shapes and a kind of fantasy. . . . “

“Shut up!” she said, isolating each word. Shut. Up. I know she means it when she isolates.

9:23 p.m. Lights. A tunnel of lights. A bridge of lights. Airplanes in lights. The waterfront in lights. The Hollywood Bowl in lights. Everything but a martini in lights.

If you like things that twinkle and glow and blink, this was the place to be. You can walk through or you can drive. You can watch your power bills rise and your wallets flatten before your amazed and happy eyes. Few cities offer that.

“Now wasn’t that fun,” Cinelli said. It was 9:41. We had crawled through misery for more than two hours to see less than 20 minutes of light.

“It was holly, golly, folly, Miss Molly,” I said. She sighed.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com