by BRENDA STEWART
Regardless where you fall on the public display of Christmas decoration spectrum, unless your religious views just render it moot or you are an unabashed scrooge, you’ve probably got some kind of holiday adornment signaling that Christmas is coming to your house too.
From the solitary, battery-powered candle flickering in a dark curtained window, to the Babes-in-Toyland-meets-Disneyland circus undoubtedly visible from space, to a laden sleigh pulling the jolly one, or the swaddled babe surrounded by wise men proffering exotic gifts, there is no “right” way to decorate.
Christmas is funny like that. Although we are, for the most part, collectively joined in the spirit of generosity and joviality, each family seems to drive their own boat when it comes to deciding what decorations they personally think represent their idea of Christmas.
And folks have been creatively expressing their individual and community spirit throughout the ages. Midwinter celebrations date back to ancient times with yule logs and candles representing light and hope and warmth.
A little closer to home, the first outdoor electric Christmas lights were actually introduced in New Jersey in 1880 as an advertising ploy. Thomas Edison strung them around his Menlo Park laboratory for commuters between Manhattan and Philadelphia to admire each night as they made their way home on the train.
By the turn of the century, strings of lights were beginning to be mass-produced and department stores and public buildings began to use them to decorate their facades in a marketing tradition that continues to this day.
Calvin Coolidge set the precedent for outdoor holiday displays when he lit the first Christmas tree on the White House lawn in 1923. After World War II folks across the nation began to light up their homes and lawns in earnest.
Decorations ran the gamut from chunky, incandescent primary-colored single strand lights, to the jig-sawed plywood cutouts of St. Nick and his flying red-nosed reindeer caught in the 500 watt floodlights of the 50s. Then came the sturdy, internally-lit plastic “blow mold” figurines of Mary and Joseph and Santa and Frostie that showed the neighbors your festive nature around the clock in the 60s.
These days you never know what you’re going to find when the sun goes down on any given December day. From candy cane lanes leading to manger scenes to a throbbing computer-generated Trans-Siberian light extravaganza, seems the sky’s the limit.
And through it all, it’s just nice to have the added light and color grace our grey winter landscape. I think those pagans just might have been onto something.
