Only lights on one side really?

 Do we only “light on one side?” 

So it was purely by chance that the strains of Wha hoo wha Hoo  met my ears on this past holiday weekend signaling the start of my favorite —short Christmas  offering.  All versions  of A Christmas carol (except  maybe the Muppet one)  are my very favorite... Sorry Burl Ives and the body shaming song about a red-nose... After all shouldn’t we always look for the red-nose in everyone —-that’s tomorrow or the thenext post.    Now anyway ...

So this Grinch tells Cindy Low that a light only lights on one side.... really?   

How often  is it when  we describe others  do we only describe one side or only look to see the side we  want to light?  How many times do we assume  only one side  of things is worth seeing and worse yet how much joy gets extinguished when we assume things only have two sides lighted or not?  

As far as lights and Christmas go... some other thoughts also could be illuminating.

The wizard of Menlo Park... Thomas Edison is credited with the first holiday light displays.  Well... truth be told—oh let’s not get into truth or we might have to discuss supply chain fear mongering again... Edison constructed  a light show as a promotional event  more so than  wanting to express the joy of the season.  This 1880  event  started a tradition that needed to be started given the fact that hanging lit candles on a drying fir tree in ones home in places where horse drawn fire trucks were the primary emergency squad probably lacked a certain amount of wisdom.  Nonetheless we have gone from a few lights by Edison to some “Griswoldian” displays yielding world records (the data may be dated  but it’s all I could find) ... for instance the most lights on a residential home reached  over.600,000.  Now I don’t know how much it costs to run over a half million lights yet the early light displays cost about 300 dollars  in an era when you could buy a Model T for about 295.  So placed in perspective imagine spending twenty grand on your lights this year?  Okay  so this was a whole house display...what about the most on one tree?  On a marvelous artificial tree a dude from Australia  manages to string 500 thousand mini lights.  Can you imagine. How long it takes to untangle them next year?  Oh am I the only one who swears  we’ll roll them up and store them differently next time?  

Well like most modern lights this post has phased through the solid and blinking phases so we need to get to the finale.  

The Grinch reminds us that when we look only at one side it’s probably hiding some of the truth.  The displays of holiday cheers  might just be sellling something that we can’t maintain  or don’t get to the spirit of peace and joy and if we choose to display lights it shouldn’t be to impress others because  if you’re not going  for a million you won’t make the record books.  Therefore  find a few lights that share the beauty of the season and make your heart glow and show a few friends and neighbors that you appreciate a spirit of giving and  forgiving.  .   Otherwise  I’m not sure you should touch your lights with a 39 and a half foot pole.  t7]