Let There Be Lights

My mother was a purist when it came to Christmas lights: only white, only small, only on the tree and a few on the bridge to light the way for Santa's visitors, and no movement or sound.

She pronounced colored lights and displays "tacky," although as a family we did drive down to the two circles with their C-7-bulbed trees and cutout nutcracker decorations.

I wonder what she would think of the Christmas decorating craze that has characterized American consumer and popular culture in the decades since her death.  What, for example, what she make of the woman who does this every year?

Would she still mutter "Tacky" under her breath?  Or would she have come to love the celebratory spirit of a person who celebrates a season and shares it with others.

Though I have no fondness for the plastic store-bought scenes, I have to admit that I have shed my puritanical bias against showy Christmas lights.  The more, the merrier for me.

I celebrate the celebrants!