I love decorating for Christmas, and I especially love Christmas lights. Last year Christmas at our house looked like this (including darling granddaughters).

This year, there’s no room for a tree in this condo, and living as nomads, of course none of our ornaments are with us anyway. Here’s our Christmas Tree this year.

 

Instead, this year we have drinking glasses with dollar-store lights stuffed in them on various end tables and counters, which is more festive than you might think, but still. I’m enjoying lights wherever I can find them. Last Friday night we went to dinner at Taco Boy, here on Folly Beach, because it had a few fun lights and looked quirky enough to pique our interest.

Plus I haven’t quite satisfied my craving for Mexican food. Mediocre margaritas, I’m sorry to report. The fish tacos were not bad, but the lights were better. I’m not certain they were all to do with Christmas, but look how fun they are . . .

And the wall of masks is pretty great, too . . .

By the time we left, I still hadn’t had my fill of Christmas lights, so instead of heading straight home, we decided to follow some signs we’d noticed advertising a holiday light show. It turned out to be the Holiday Festival of Lights at James Island County Park . . .

. . . which is apparently a big deal around here. It was mobbed, even at $15 per car. Not quite Cavalcade de La Rochelle, but reasonably entertaining, especially for children, with more than 700 light displays, many of them moving and changing. My favorite was this beautiful blue tree reflected on the pond . . .

This evening the sun set on a day of pouring rain, gloomy as can be outside. So I’m especially thankful to be inside, having a glass of wine with David and enjoying our dollar-store decor and tea lights on a tray, in place of the usual shimmering tree and blazing fire. Of course, even dollar-store lights shine, and they’re beautiful to me.

A few bonus thoughts about light:

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.∼Desmond Tutu

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.∼Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.∼Edith Wharton

Wishing you light and life this Christmas!