I have never been a great fan of decorating the outside of our house with Christmas lights. Every year, usually at the end of November (and definitely after November 11), I have taken the long ladder out of the garage and climbed up to the top of our eaves to clip on the strings of lights to be illuminated at sunset to create a joyous Christmas “glow”. Often, I have had to go to the store to get a new set of lights as one string would no longer light – “just a fuse replacement needed,” they say. Bah humbug, not true! 

What a nice gesture to have lights, though, and particularly if others on the street do the same. Unfortunately, because we live in Canada, it is wintry weather when you put them up, and fingers begin to lose feeling when carefully attaching the lights. And wind, snow, rain, and other winter elements tend to wreak havoc with the best laid decorating plans. (My front yard snowman was an unfortunate victim of last year’s winds). Of course, the “coup de gras” of putting up lights is having to take them down. “Just leave them up” I always say to my wife. “It looks messy and unkept,” she replies and of course, every year I take them down.

Before embarking on the country life, I noticed fewer people in surrounding city neighbourhoods were framing their homes with lights although there continued to be lots of front yard caricatures. (I just cannot see Christmas racoons or chickens or even geese on my front lawn, but you see it all). I was very impressed one year when people started putting Christmas ornaments on trees bordering the local trail but unfortunately many of those who put them up neglected to take them down and broken or fallen ornaments littered the trail in springtime. Putting up lights or ornaments brings with it serious responsibility, I suggest.

Individual light displays may be declining in city neighbourhoods, but big organized “events” are increasingly popular. For years cars have crawled bumper-to-bumper along Taffy Lane in the Orleans. My mother loved to go each year. (Can you imagine, though, the pressure living on that street having to put up the lights?). As a child, I recall my parents packing us into the car to go to Lambeth to see the Christmas lights. “Live in lovely Lambeth” the entrance to the community said. But you waited for a long time as the cars slowly progressed through the village to watch the lights. (Part of the Christmas experience you say?).

Like everything these days, it seems, expenses must be recovered, or there must be a monetary incentive for doing it – create a tourist attraction, for example. Now we have impressive Christmas lighting displays at Upper Canada Village, or in Wesley Clover Park in Ottawa. People can drive many miles just to see the wonder of the extensive and beautiful lighting offered – as a paid attraction. Can Taffy Lane be far behind, by the way?

Living in the country, things seem to be different. Lighting is a big thing here. My grandson and I have driven along the country roads and community streets to determine which home gets most thumbs up. Lights seem to be strung up everywhere: on homes, garages, adjoining trees, or amazingly on chimneys. Why is that? Don’t residents freeze their fingers or lament the taking down exercise in the spring?

For the recent Santa Claus parade here in Crysler I noticed that in the week before the parade there was a valiant effort for most homes along the parade route to decorate, mostly with lights. It really added to the parade festivities. Tonight, my wife and I went to John Crysler Park and around the village to check out the Christmas displays. The bandshell in the park and adjoining tree had been decorated just before the parade with hundreds of coloured lights and tonight it was beautiful. Nice thing is we can see many of the displays just walking through the community – not as part of bumper-to-bumper car trips.

So just as I start to mellow to the pursuit of the traditional Christmas lighting, I have observed a trend in Crysler’s new housing developments. It’s the LED lights permanently installed along the eaves of many houses. No annual string ups required. No frozen fingers. They can be programmed in a variety of colours to suit the occasion; they can flash, glow, dim, or show patterns that only the imagination can create. Is this the next step? This phenomenon has created a bit of a dichotomy in the village too – sort of the old vs the new. It will be interesting to see the future of Christmas lighting in our rural community. 

So let us check back in five years to see what happens. In the meantime, I will continue to get the ladder out for my annual Christmas light-a-thon.