By: Lora Wimsatt
My enthusiasm for the holidays went through a dry spell a few years ago.
Thanksgiving and Christmas – the twin beacons of celebration – had always been a pleasant, happy season during my childhood, even though our family festivities were modest. I was still basking in those memories by the time my children came along, when I discovered that experiencing the bountiful feast, the sparkling lights and the joyous anticipation through their eyes rekindled my own spark of joy to an even warmer glow.
Then my kids grew up and moved away, and for awhile, I admit, those occasions became more habit than holiday.
Turkey, dressing, football – check.
Tree, lights, gifts – check.
Ho-ho-hum.
But the embers burst into a blaze of festivity three years ago with the arrival of my grandgirls, and this Thanksgiving will be especially meaningful with the birth of my first grandboy.
The lights reflected in the shining eyes of a child illuminate even the darkest corners of any home, any heart. Their cheerful squabbling over the wishbone, the breathless excitement upon spotting what must surely be a reindeer hoofprint in the snow, the earnest innocence of their closed eyes and clasped hands as thanks are offered to the Giver, their wide-eyed wonder as the star is placed at the very top of the most beautiful tree in the world ….
And then I visited the home of an elderly man, long since retired, no children or grandchildren within several zip codes, a widower puttering around in a house filled with mementos and memories.
I had entered through the “real” door, the side door, which was where the driveway took me. This is one of those houses where the front door is used only to bring in the mail and the newspaper … not that a lot of people were knocking anyway.
It was late afternoon as we sat in the living room, surrounded by Hummel figurines that would have informed even the dullest detective that no small children were expected here. I wasn’t really thinking about it at the time, but I knew this gentleman’s holidays were distinguished from all the many just-another-days only because of the hospitality of a sister-in-law or an occasional special meal at the nearby senior center.
But as evening fell, a flash of unexpected color caught my eye, and I glanced out the large window that opened onto the front porch of his home.
“Oh look!” I exclaimed, and he did, but he seemed puzzled about what he was supposed to be looking at.
“The lights!” I cried. “Look at all the lights!”
I hadn’t even noticed them before, but the rails and columns on the front porch had been twined about with strings of light, with plastic decorations dangled from shoestrings tied to the underside of the gutter.
“They’re on a timer,” he explained when I asked how the lights had come on all by themselves. “The kids like it.”
Without thinking, I wondered out loud, “What kids?” If my question seemed abrupt, he seemed not to notice.
“Just the kids in the neighborhood,” he said. “I decorate for them on all the holidays.”
I thought about that later as I sat quietly in my own home, looking out the window at flocks of neighborhood children riding their bicycles, chasing dogs and one another, and generally enjoying the final days of autumn before cold weather drives them indoors until spring.
And I smiled.
As long as there is a child, I promised myself, any child, anywhere, I would let the spirit and the lights of the season shine.