Twinkle Lights...

She wasn't sure exactly when she noticed the change. It had been a low level awareness for a few weeks before she really started paying attention. Probably around Epiphany. That was when most people took down their Christmas lights if they hadn't done it before. But this year it seemed like more people than normal were keeping them up for longer.

Mid-January came and there were still at least a half dozen in her neighborhood that still had them up. And then she started to pay attention when they were downtown. At least two or three condos in each building still had lights on their balconies.

If windows were open she would look quickly as they drove by, were the trees still up and lit too or just the outside lights? It had been a particularly wet January so maybe people just didn't want to do it in the rain. By the end of January this excuse didn't seem to make sense anymore.

Even in wet years people didn't keep their lights up for a month past Christmas.

Maybe it was a sign of how miserable the country was. Everyone seemed just tired of being mad at this point. Maybe the lights were making the people who lived in those houses happy still and they weren't ready to give them up.

February came and went and still the lights were up.

She was trying not to be judgmental about it. After all if it really was making them happy why should it matter to her?

Except it did.

Honestly, it was March. Christmas was long past. The crocus were blooming and the tulips weren't too far behind. Spring. Not Christmas. No need for Christmas lights. The purpose of lights at the winter holidays is to chase away the dark, well, the time change had already happened and the dark was leaving its own accord now so...

Then she would take a deep breath and remind herself that different people do different things. That if they wanted to leave their Christmas lights up all year it was their business not hers. Even if they were Christmas lights and by leaving them up through April now they weren't special at all. They were just lights at this point.

At least when people string them in their yards during the summer they called them fairy lights. And only kept them up for a few weeks while they had cookouts and bonfires and evening parties. They weren't Christmas lights because they had been taken down and then MONTHS later put back up for a different purpose. They were still special that way. How was anything going to be special if you kept them up straight through July?

But you know, maybe it was just a habit now for them. They were used to seeing the lights and to take them down the house would look so plain. We all go through that after Christmas, when the decorations first go up everything looks so festive and bright and maybe a little busy. Then when they come down there is a day or maybe two where the house just looks so drab and plain. And that's after only having them up for a few weeks. Imagine taking them down in August now that you were clearly used to seeing them all of the time. Maybe the thought was too much.

By the end of October she knew that it was a lost cause. At this point the early decorators were putting their lights back up. To take them down now would be ridiculous. And honestly in a few weeks they wouldn't stick out anymore. Everyone would be festive again and their year round lights would be totally appropriate.

It still bothered her just a little.

That nagging voice in her head.

The one she had only been half listening to.

The one that had been trying to tell her for almost a year that the lights were on but nobody was home...