Light the Lights...

Part One
Part Two
Part Three


Lauren held her cup of hot chocolate and waited. It was almost time. Sunset was about 45 minutes away and since it was the first night there would be more of a ceremony before the first candle was lit. It was her own private tradition. Standing in Pioneer Courthouse Square waiting for the menorah to be lit. She wasn't Jewish. She wasn't anything. Her parents weren't religious. Her grandparents weren't religious. She was raised as secular as secular could be. So much so that she didn't even know the word secular until college when her roommate had told her she hadn't been allowed to listen to secular music growing up.

But because she had no religions dominating her head she could freely love the pageantry of all of the religions around her. So standing in Pioneer Courthouse Square with the giant Christmas tree to her back waiting for the menorah to be lit, while holding onto a "War on Christmas" Starbucks cup of hot chocolate had become one of her own private moments of holiday joy. She had started it as a teenager. Being allowed to head downtown on her own was a big deal. She and her girlfriends would walk around Meier and Frank and look at the holiday windows, then wander around Nordstroms pretending they could afford anything there, then over to the square for hot chocolate and watching the menorah be lit.

Changes came. Meier and Frank became Macy's and then closed all together. Her friends got jobs in other states after college and if they came home for Christmas it was only for a few days, maybe time to grab a cup of coffee someplace, but no time for leisurely wandering. She could actually afford some of the things in Nordstroms now and discovered that it was actually more fun to dream about them than it was to buy them.

But the thing that held steady was the joy she felt with that Christmas tree at her back and the menorah glowing in front of her while verses were recited in a language she didn't understand and sometimes poems were given that she did. She liked the pageantry. She liked the good parts. She liked the fancy lights. She liked the songs. She liked the poems. She liked the stories. She liked it all.
It made her happy.


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"Is Andrew joining us?" Carrie asked.

James was dropping drinks off at the table. "Yeah, he'll be here soon. He said he wanted to stop at the square and watch the menorah lighting."

"Oh, I didn't know he converted."

James shook his head, "He didn't. We were raised Evangelical but he isn't anything now. He just really likes the menorah lighting for some reason."