Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is quiet at our house. The parties, plays, parades, potlucks, concerts, and family gatherings are over. Shopping, wrapping, baking, and cooking are done. It's just the three of us, alone, to entertain ourselves.

So as soon as it is dark, we make our annual trek through town to see the Christmas lights and outdoor decorations. Tonight, a brilliant moon loomed large in the eastern sky against a royal blue, velvet sky. Most times, the moon appears as a flat, white dish in a black sky, but this night it appeared three-dimensionally round...suspended...so close, I might reach out and touch it.

It's hard to compete with nature's light shows, but in our small town, three homes, in three different residential areas, stood out for their lighting displays. No inch of roof, house, window, fence, or lawn was untouched by string upon string of lights, lighted nativity scenes, lighted Santas and reindeer, animated wire deer and snowmen (lighted, of course), and huge, lighted, inflatables like snowmen, Santas, and snowglobes featuring animations and snow flurries inside. There were plenty of other lighting displays, too, but none so grand as those three.

Commercial businesses got into the act, as well, particularly one downtown bank that was outlined in colorful lights. Every bush, too, was neatly strung in lights, and a Christmas tree fashioned from lights, with a big star of lights on top, shown forth from the rooftop. A back-lighted wood silhouette of the nativity graced the lawn.

We spent a couple of hours enjoying the displays, while listening to Christmas CDs, before returning home to open gifts...a tradition at our house, because like little children we can't wait until Christmas morning.