Acts of Light

You're going to have to trust me on this one because this is the best picture I have so far.

I've been warned that holidays can be tough after you've experienced a loss of someone you love. I had a bit of trouble—a grief spasm, I understand they are called—the day before turkey day. And I would truly like to not have any more. Tears—OK. Wracking emotional turmoil, not so much.

And in my book, Christmas is tougher than turkey day. So I'm doing my best to meet this head-on.

First up, dealing with the dark. We're coming up to Solstice and this year, it comes complete with a full moon and a lunar eclipse. Powerful stuff.

Now I love Christmas lights. There's a hill up above us in the town of Pomfret that has the quintessential white church in a setting straight out of Currier and Ives. As you drive toward it, there's a hillside you can see across a wide field where the houses with their Christmas lights just push any nostalgia buttons you may have. If you get it just right and drive up there with a very light snow just after the sun sets, the image is indelible.

Usually, we never get around to putting up any lights at all until way too close to the holiday and usually abandon the effort because it is WAY TOO COLD. So this year, I got going early.

These large branches are from a box elder that came down in a storm back in September. Their trunks are set in tubes of PVC pipe hammered into the ground. (Fortunately, the earth is not frozen in this spot yet.) We needed to keep the lights near the house because we can't have an extension cord frozen to the ground where we're going to snowblow and these temporary shrubs are perfectly placed to avoid that.

So this was a true family effort—my design idea and organizational skills. Jay helped me drag the branches to the house and hammered in the PVC pipe. Jesse wrapped the stems in lights with me yesterday when the sun was out and the air warm enough for me to shed my jacket.

I need to get a much better picture to show you but that requires a tripod which I have to locate. But in the meantime, believe me, they look very, very good.

For kickers, here's a picture of the branches wrapped in lights during the daylight hours.