Lights

 

Stopping in London in November and early December was illuminating.  The weather is pretty bad - dark clouds most days and rain.  And it gets dark at around 4pm.  Our friend Steve has pointed out many times that there is a reason it is so green in England - rains most of the time.

It is hard to imagine living there for a long time.  I suppose if we did we’d find ways to equip ourselves for the weather and to stay sane (you can get out and be active in the rain after all) but the prospect doesn’t excite me too much - I think we want somewhere with more days of sunshine than most parts of England.

One of the surprising discoveries when we first moved to the USA in 2000 was that people would light up the outside of their houses with colorful lights during the winter months.  We were perhaps a little scornful of the wasted electricity at first but after spending a winter here we realized that these lights bring cheer into an otherwise pretty dark and depressing time of year.  Apparently outside lights for homes have been a feature of America since the 60’s.

Some people start by putting Halloween themed lights on their houses as November approaches and then swap them out for festive lights in December and keep them there through the darkest months.  Some of these homes go completely over the top and create elaborate decorations coordinated  with music that is broadcast on a little short-range FM transmitter.

There is a house in Massachusetts that causes a traffic jam on their main road every year as people slow down or stop to look at their light display.

When we visited our friends Chris and Beth in North Carolina in 2019 they took us to an incredibly impressive house near theirs that has a drive-though of their amazing display of Christmas lights every year.

Of course this is in stark contrast to our experience in South Africa where the longest days are in December and the shortest days are really not that short in mid-winter (July).  No one lit up the outside of their houses with festive lights there - although it looks like the practice has made its way to South Africa now as well based on a search on the web.

In England people decorate the outside of their homes with lights - although I have to admit that I didn’t see as many nor as extravagant displays in the streets of West Molesey.

Lighting displays in public areas is also popular - mostly, in America, town squares will have a big tree that gets adorned with lights and are lit in a ceremony with choirs and perhaps a school band.  In cities there are often coordinated light displays in the Christmas calendar.

About a 30min drive from Molesey is a botanical garden called Wisley that hosts a Christmas light display that was well worth a visit.  At the entrance were stalls selling Indian curries, Bratwurst in a bagel and Hot Chocolate (with Baileys for the adults) and Mulled wine.

The Christmas lights were spectacular - snaking along a path through the park starting with a beautifully lit building with a classical Christmas music backdrop

and then through wisteria

past a somewhat creepy display of a massive tree above an old building

and then a foggy path

and on to a light display with fountains and a series of ponds with large trees, all illuminated in different colors.

The walk was beautiful.

One of our daughters lives in a crescent that has a group chat that they use to organize ways for the street residents to cooperate and they had a planned street lighting on the night before we flew back the USA.

 

The residents congregated in the street to listen to children singing carol karaoke before a countdown to turning on all the lights in the houses on the street at 5pm - already pitch dark and getting cold.

I am no longer cynical about the lights - they bring plenty of cheer while the days are short and cold and rainy.