Christmas Apathy or Just too Expensive?

I was driving through various neighborhoods this year looking for one thing...Christmas lights. I figured it is now nine days (EEEEEKKKKK!) until Christmas. I even looked in my own neighborhood...almost nothing.

I know electric bills are high and the addition of lights just raise the numbers on the statement. But it's Christmas. In years past my own neighborhood was lit to the point of needing sunglasses...now only three houses. There is something dreary about no lights on houses for the season.

While it rarely snows here in south Georgia, the lights were something I looked forward to. Now, I understand both moms and dads working. Heck wasn't I the one holding down two jobs with my husband doing the same and raising our brood of four? But even before we had money to buy any serious lighting endeavor, we always hung a wreath and strung lights on the porch. It was done for the children and the neighbors. It helped herald in the season.

I remember during my childhood at my grandmother's house, my mother taking cardboard and cutting out shapes of angels. They were actually cut from refrigerator boxes. My grandmother made paste from flour and water. We kids sprinkled glitter on them. These were hung with pride from the front porch of my grandmother's two-story home in Nebraska.  One of my aunts' boyfriends came over and strung the lights. It was a single, solitary string of large bulbs. Not much but it was Christmas. This was the year my father was stationed in Japan again. This time without us. We missed him terribly, but in my five-year old mind the lights were bright enough for him to see way over there. It gave me joy and comfort. It helped a lonely girl who wanted nothing more than her father to be home for Christmas feel some cheer?


So why haven't you strung your lights this year? Is it Christmas apathy or just too expensive?

Keep writing and loving the Lord.