An important but often neglected tradition, the annual installation of Christmas lights, is definitely part of my childhood/ now adulthood. My parents either really loved the idea of Christmas after they came from China to the US, or they were doing it for me to raise me in an American-style household, or they got sucked into the consumer culture of Christmas, but Christmas was a pretty big deal in our household. I still remember the first time I got a Super Nintendo on Christmas when I was 7, I was absolutely convinced Santa Clause existed. The first year we moved into our own house in the suburbs, we started putting up Christmas lights. This is a BIG deal in the suburbs, as it's where families indoctrinate their children with the Christmas spirit but also light up the streets with Christmas decorations so their neighbors can also enjoy it. To this day I feel like Christmas decorations and weddings are almost equally for other people than the people in charge of them, they are positive externalities for society, no one's forcing people to put up Christmas decorations, people just want to share the holiday share, might be one of the more positive signs for humankind.
One of my favorite traditions on Christmas eve (other than having a HUGE dinner and possibly watching Elf or Home Alone for the umpteenth time) is to walk around at night to view everyone else's Christmas lights in the neighborhood. In middle-upper-middle class neighborhoods like my parents', the lights can be pretty impressive. A few neighbors take it up a notch, getting all their neighbors on the block to put up lights so that the whole block lights up at night like a Santa village. The decorations get better each year because everyone has the old decorations, plus they add the new innovations, like this year the hot new trend was a spotlight shining onto a screen to get an illumination feel, it's almost like Zoo Lights light show quality. Some households are on vacation or just don't have time to turn on their lights every night, but I think on Christmas Eve night EVERYONE does their darnedest to turn on the lights and keep'em on all night, so you get the maximum effect. If only Southern California ever got any snow, it would just make the whole effect even better.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
No comments:
Post a Comment