Like many Christmas-celebrating Americans, I look forward to my annual holiday light-viewing experience. I love the myriad of mini multicolored luminaries that twinkle in the nighttime sky at this time of year. I have yet to trim my own house with lights, but I certainly enjoy the prolific radiant fruits of other people’s labors.
After marrying my husband three years ago, my Christmas light-viewing jaunts have become much more adventurous.
My husband takes a militaristic approach to looking at Christmas lights. About three or four days before Christmas Eve, he plans our route by looking up addresses in the local newspaper’s holiday light insert and website. Then he draws up an itinerary that includes the most logical order of houses within a ten-mile radius of our own home.
On Christmas Eve, I navigate as Dan roars through the neighborhoods, making sure we see every house on our list, careful not to backtrack or look at any house twice.
From my perch in the passenger's seat, I watch the blur of lights whiz by as my husband whips around the cul-de-sacs, entertaining himself by slamming on the brakes on the icy patches, sending our car into fishtail down the street.
This year, I convinced Dan to split our trip into two evenings. We looked at lights once on our anniversary, conveniently five days before Christmas, and once on Christmas Eve. The light-viewing during our anniversary proved to be rather disappointing for Dan, however, since the streets were too dry to do any “Tokyo Drifting.”
The icy roads on Christmas Eve were much more rewarding for Dan, and I was able to see many kaleidoscopic displays. Every once in a while, Dan interjected, “Ha ha! That was a good one!” when our tires would slip around on the glacial neighborhood streets. Sure, my knuckles turned white as I clutched the car door handle in terror, but it was all worth it to hear the enthusiastic Christmas spirit in my husband’s voice.
Never mind that we did backtrack and pass a few houses more than once or twice, typically at least a venial sin according to Dan’s logic. In fact, we drove by the nice couple, who were passing out candy canes dressed up like Santa and Mrs. Claus, three times. They stood in the driveway to their house and waved and smiled at us, never indicating that they thought we were at all crazy. By the third time, I buried my head in my black pea coat and sank down into my seat as Dan said, “I think we’ve seen these houses before.”
In truth, driving around to look at Christmas lights with my husband is far more fun than looking at them alone. For one thing, Dan has a better sense of direction than I do. Yes, we saw a few houses more than once this year; but when I used to go out alone, I would drive by the same house at least six or seven times, probably looking more like a stalker than a Christmas light-seeker.
Every activity as a married person is an adventure. Even something as simple as looking at Christmas lights takes on a life of its own with a spouse. But I can’t think of a more amusing and enjoyable way to create Christmas traditions and memories.
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