Dear Auntie Mac,
Our family is as jolly as the rest of the world during the holidays and we display our festive spirit with wreaths on our doors, reindeer in our yard, and candles in our windows. And we admire those who do so much more to spread cheer throughout the season with extravagant light displays for the enjoyment of all. However, our neighbors multiple, multi-colored lights that begin to blink before Thanksgiving and continue until after the New Year keep me up at night. Would it be too Scrooge-ish to approach them and suggest – can you turn them off after ten o’clock?
Merry Christmas!
My Dear Neighbor,
Auntie Mac would be a holiday-smothering wet blanket if she did not applaud those who, like yourself, leap into the seasonal spirit with as many visual aids as possible—including, but not limited to, faux wildlife on the lawn. And she does dearly love to travel through the center of town in the evening and see the heartwarming display of window candles in the stately houses that line Main Street. She concurs, however, that exposing one’s neighbors to an environment similar to a runway at Heathrow Airport from October until Groundhog Day can test the serenity of even the most fervent of Yuletide devotees.
Your neighbors, I assure you, will be more than happy to make sure that you, as their closest audience, receive nothing but joy from their yearly gift to the utility company. Approach them and their display with the awe it deserves, and ask politely if they would consider turning it off after 10pm. This is an absolutely reasonable request, and if your neighbors have lived in town for more than a month they know that few will pass their house after that hour anyway. Offer to purchase, as a Christmas gift, a timer for this very purpose. All the while marveling at the ingenuity of the inflatable elf, the star of Bethlehem that blinks out “Away in a Manger” in Morse Code, the LED-infused split rail fence. Humble yourself at the magnitude of bulb clusters, acknowledge the hours it took to drape the boxwood with the net of blinding chartreuse, commiserate with the eldest son regarding the nasty fall he took while positioning Santa in a lawn chair on the roof. Follow up with a delivery of baked goods to their doorstep, just to insure that neighborly goodwill extends through the non-illuminated months.
Holiday etiquette dictates that lights may go up the day after Thanksgiving and be taken down before January 6th, which is Three Kings Day and the last of the 12 days of Christmas. Auntie Mac understands that some may want to extend this timeframe; still, she urges moderation and restraint. All our reindeer, at some point, need to return north. And any reflection that we engage in during the dark winter months should now be turned inward; it will keep us all warm.
Your Auntie Mac