Is it just my imagination, or are people embracing Christmas decorations a little more this year? My state of New Mexico recently closed the restaurants and most of the stores (again) and has pretty well given up on schools and churches. One of the few things we can do to act like it’s a normal year is decorate for the holidays. That’s how I felt last weekend when I hung a lighted wreath on the front of my house and strung colored lights on a nearby juniper.
I’m also grateful that moving to a smaller house means that decking the halls is no longer the major production it was for many years.
When we lived in Oak Park in the 1970s and 80s, our neighborhood of vintage houses didn’t go in for lavish outdoor decorations. I’d drape some lights on the front bushes and inside our enclosed porch. At some point we’d get in the car and drive through wealthier neighborhoods where folks were more conspicuous in their consumption of electricity.
Decorations inside our house were more festive with a mix of inherited and acquired memorabilia. There was an array of ceramic figurines and knickknacks. A battered Christmas creche included a chipped ceramic Holy Family and amputee animals. A pair of wooden reindeer could be arranged in suggestive poses. We had Christmas tablecloths, napkins, placemats, towels, aprons, glassware and an entire set of china. And a really annoying clock that played Christmas carols on the hour.
My late wife liked Christmas candles. She probably got that from her mother, who was unusually Catholic and lit enough holiday candles to reduce her December heating bill. We became expert at removing wax from tablecloths and had a close call one year when a shelf began to smolder, but generally got through Christmas without collateral damage.
We upgraded our outdoor decorations when we moved to a suburban ranch house in LaGrange, where more ambitious decorations went up promptly on Thanksgiving weekend by unwritten law. I festooned about 50 feet of bushes with lights and wound more lights around the wrought-iron porch railings. Every year we bought a four-foot natural wreath from a handicapped Boy Scout who sold Christmas foliage to the entire neighborhood (because nobody can say no to an enterprising Boy Scout in a wheelchair).
Here in New Mexico, people string lights on their houses but the default Christmas decoration is luminarias. These candles in weighted paper bags are everywhere, lining sidewalks and and perching atop garden walls and rooftops. We tried using them in Oak Park a couple of times but the paper bags did not stand up to Chicago sleet storms. In Albuquerque I got up on a ladder every year to string lights on my faux-Spanish front portal, draped lights over bushes, mounted lighted wreaths and set out a string of electric-and-plastic luminarias.
Last Christmas the kids and I went through years of accumulated holiday paraphernalia — most of which they wisely refused to take off my hands — in preparation for my move. I threw out lots of stuff and donated a number of items to charity. Whoever winds up with the Christmas carol clock has my sympathy.
Outdoor decorations are a little more restrained in the over-55 community where I now live. Many of my neighbors have wreaths and lighted decorations in front of their homes, but I don’t see my fellow seniors climbing ladders to hang lights from the eaves. We do not lack for holiday glam, however, because a team of volunteers draped the community’s security gates with garlands and lined the entrance drive with decorations and luminarias.
All of which feels comfortingly normal. I am looking forward to visiting Albuquerque’s Old Town Plaza on Christmas Eve to see the tree and all the luminarias. Even if I have to stay in my car.