At our house we don’t participate in the “When’s the right time to put up Christmas lights?” debate. The reason is obvious for any of our regular visitors, and this is because we just leave them up all year around. And we don’t only simply leave them up, we make sure to flip them turn on come sunset every night. Our house, like any other person’s home, is special to us, and the added effect of the colorful lights tracing the angles, lines and fenceposts make it seem even more unique. While the rest of the neighborhood has its own variation of landscaping and displays going on, for us you pull into the driveway and you’ve entered another world. One with an orbit unlike any other. I’m biased as hell but that’s how I see it.
As the years tick past, the question about the lights only take center stage when the property starts to look like a partially completed, slightly crazed Lite Brite display. Our festive artistry to begin with is not exactly perfect—so when the lights start to go out it looks even more noticeable. So it’s around the time that we have nothing more pressing on our plate—and especially right now that we’ve kicked off the holiday season, we decided to do something about it.
It helped that the Christmas Tree Shop had boxes of lights on sale for next to nothing. Further, when we realized that we would need more than what we’d bought this year, my brother found more boxes stashed away. Clearly the actions of our past selves; I’m just impressed that he managed to find them before we went out again and bought even more up.
As a kid, in December our parents would take us over the bridge to visit Edaville Railroad. It’s an attraction located just off Cape where you can ride the trains from times gone by—but at Christmas they make the train ride even more thrilling for a young kid because they string the heck out of this cranberry-bogged environs.
I remember sitting on the train, all wrapped up in too much winter kit because it was indeed cold and snowy outside. The rest of the train would be dressed similarly, and this created for fogged windows that you’d have to clear in order to fully appreciate the animal shapes. The bright red sign in the woods that said Happy Holidays. I am positive that I saw much more—it’s just that my adult mind has now compressed it all into a few flashes of color and sensation.
Our house, of course, will never look as good as Edaville Railroad does. Nor will it look as nice as the Falmouth Village Green—the isosceles triangle in the center of town. They don’t care about the lights debate either. This morning as I was making my last rounds around town, I pulled over for a wander since there was already most of the decorations up. They do have some lights, but at the holidays the Green is populated more by static displays. A choir of singers, a menorah, Santa and his reindeer. You take it all in, and it makes a special town feel all the more special.
Assuming that we always avoid electrocuting ourselves, or worse—falling from a ladder—it’s a nice activity putting up the lights. You do it by day, lining them along as you can, and then you have to wait for nightfall in order to enjoy it all. Last night I actually didn’t get around to going outside to get a good look. After we shot down to the beah to watch the sunset, we headed inside and kind of forgot to look after flipping the Christmas lights switch on. And then, the Bruins were playing and I opted to spend my time on the couch with my dad and brother. Using my few remaining moments doing the most Cape Cod things I know. It was like getting a Christmas gift early.
This morning, I woke up early. The jet lag on this strip has been especially challenging, and this means that I never really managed to sleep past 0600. Maybe that’s because I’m getting older, maybe it’s because the noises in a once familiar house are now a bit alien—and as such I wake up at any noise. Whatever the case, I was out of bed at 0500 this morning, padding around the house and thinking about the long journey back to work later this evening. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t looked at the lights.
It doesn’t start to get light until after six o’clock, and so with that I put on a jacket and flipped back on the Christmas lights (Dad shuts them off before going to bed). I wandered around the driveway and pool area, snapping photos of the handiwork that my brother and I had accomplished the morning before. In the quiet cold of this last November morning of 2022, it made my smile. Our lights were never up too early or too late. They are just always there, some working and some not. To me it is perfection. I smiled as I took a few photos—knowing full well that the memory that I’d keep on my phone would not nearly live up to the experience of actually standing in the yard.
I’m looking forward to going back to Rome and into my usual routine of life. Rome does Christmas light, and they have their share of lights, presespi and Santas on bicycles. I have seen them all in the past and I am looking forward to discovery what will be waiting for me this December. Everything of course will have its own magic and for sure I will appreciate the opportunity I get to be there. But it won’t be home. It won’t have the same power in its magic. Much like the rest of us, when we find ourselves walking a pathway that leads us to somewhere that really suits us, I feel grateful that I’ve already had the chance to experience a bit of Christmas at home. This month and whenever I get there all the year.