One of my favorite parts of the holidays are the Christmas lights. Whether you drive around your neighborhood or visit parks like Overly’s Country Christmas or Ogleby’s, you can see an assortment of lights hanging from houses, trees and shrubs. In our neck of the woods, there’s a lot of pride in our designs as we average around four thousand lights. There are totes upon totes full of light strands and extensions chords. We begin around Thanksgiving by trimming the shrubs and pine trees. Then begins the tedious yet enjoyable process of hanging all the strands. This year, we even invested in a tool that tests bulbs and repairs damaged charges. It’s a labor-intensive and long process–but it’s a beautiful outcome. We ended up with 42 strands of lights, which is roughly 5100 bulbs, eight spiral trees, four mini-trees, three full-size trees, two wreaths and 25 candy canes. Thanks to our antics, my dad is affectionately known as Clark Griswold during the holidays. Thinking about Christmas lights, they really have come a long way since their Medieval origins. Beginning as candles and lanterns tied or melted to tree branches, then evolving with electricity to be mass produced in 1890, and then to the safe, highly marketable products we see today. There’s a little over a month left of seeing the lights–enjoy them while you can!
