Bring on the Christmas season! I am super excited because my college-bound kiddo is coming home for the whole month! Also, Christmas lights are everywhre. My mind has been on Christmas light lately. I have only had Christmas lights up on a house once, many years ago, but I dream of the day I can have a house covered in them. I do not currently put lights on the house because the husband and I do not agree on what is festive and whether or not it is necessary to risk your neck on a ladder this time of year. Since I’ve fallen off a ladder and obliterated my knee I no longer have a vote. One day though, I will afford to have a team of people light it up!

I absolutely love driving through the neighborhoods looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights. It is the one thing that always gets me into the Christmas mood. That and putting up the tree. I find that as I get older the things that made me feel all Christmas-y are changing. It used to be the school Christmast choir and band concerts, the gift exchange at my Women’s Bible Study, and the toy aisle at Target.

We didn’t buy the kids toys very often but they got to walk through the aisle, pick up toys and dream of what it would be like to have them. Then, at Christmas, we would buy them those toys. Okay, the husband would buy them the toys. I could never decide what to get them because the little girl in me wanted them all! This meant that Colin had to step in and make the hard choices. I’m getting off track again, this story is about what Christmas feels like now.

Now it is all about the lights. I went through a phase where the only lights I would use were the big multi-colored ones. You know, the ones from the 80’s that would cause fires if left on too long or plugged into an outlet that couldn’t handle the load. You know! Then it was the blue ones because we did a blue and white theme for a few years per my husband’s suggestion. Now it is all about those beautiful, bright white lights. I love the cozy glow that they produce and they go with every theme. I think they also help with my vitamin D levels. Something about the warm light they give off puts me at ease and makes me feel happy.

Outside of giving more during this season, isn’t that the other part of Christmas? To feel a little lighter, happier, and more hopeful? That is really hard for some of us to do though, and that secret has to stay buried or someone (not sure who) will judge us for it and ruin the whole season. Let’s unbury it.

I absolutely love the idea of Christmas. We look at the Norman Rockwell version, the Hollywood version, or even a past version of our own Christmases and get all those wonderful feelings. Then reality hits and we are left feeling cold, hard, and supremely unfestive. At least, that has been a few of mine.

I’ve had to take my son in for an emergency surgery during one holiday season, have had no money during many others, and have even had a bout of suffocating depression during a few. Life doesn’t stop being hard because it is Christmas but hope doesn’t stop being there either.

I sat with my coffee staring at our Christmas tree early one morning, a few years ago, and felt that hope bloom in my heart. I was staring at the bright, little lights buried within the tree branches, loving the way they lit up the tree from the inside out. That glow made my living room feel like a magical place, where the hard edge of reality didn’t exist and I could breathe.

It became my new tradition and is now one of the things I look forward to every year. For a few weeks I get to see the light within brighten the world around it. For the rest of the year I try to carry that light within me and share it. That may sound a little laughable but part of the reason I write this article is to practice being vulnerable while keeping it light. It isn’t easy and feels like an uncomfortable sweater you wear only because it is the warmest thing you own, but I do it anyway.

Now, get out those Christmas lights, wrap a layer close the trunk of the tree, wrap another layer towards the edge of the brances and then trim away! If your tree and those lights are the only thing you can control this season then make it the best lookin’ (and feelin’) tree you can. Add bows, and ribbon, and oversized ornaments. Give youself the gift of a moment of peace in the chaos.

With love and blessings during this holiday season,