Each year, as the days get to their shortest, something remarkable happens.
Up and down every street, we find rooftops, balconies, front lawns and driveways all adorned in light.
Whether you call them Christmas lights or holiday lights, these installations are a hallmark of our culture.
We’ve come to expect them. Yet, we still find ourselves amazed by them.
It’s not the displays themselves that give us pause. The ingredients of colored bulbs, green wires and brass fasteners are somewhere between tacky and blasé.
It’s not the fact that electric bills go up across town that grabs our attention. Only economists and this author find that noteworthy.
It’s not even the holiday spirit that leaves us gazing in wonder. The lights are just one part of a holistic ecosystem that makes us feel festive and warm as winter sets in.
No, it’s the sheer pervasiveness of these lights that leaves us in awe.
Even in a time when we can hardly agree which direction up is, we come together across faiths and demographics to light up the night. Across the country, we take on the arduous task of stringing lights all over the outsides of our homes.
It’s remarkable from a bird’s-eye view.
But take a closer look, and this practice can blur the lines between culture and cult.
There’s a Keeping Up With The Joneses aspect to holiday lights. Let it slip that you’re not hanging up your own lights, and you’ll be hit with an inquisitive Why Not?
The Why Nots seem to make more logistical sense than the Whys in this case. We generally celebrate the holidays indoors, so lighting up the outside of our home is not practical. And we don’t need an army of colored bulbs to lead us to the front door after dusk. Street and porch lights do just fine at that task year-round.
But none of that matters.
No matter the practicality, we’re expected to have our lights up between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. And then not to have them up the rest of the year.
These expectations drive the aura that surrounds holiday lights. For without critical mass, this phenomenon would merely be a spotty trend.
But what drives these expectations themselves?
What leads us to passively shun those who opt out of decorating? What inspires us to quietly shame those who put up their lights too early? What compels us to intuitively know when it’s time to take down the installation?
I believe the answer to this question is safety.
As members of a community, we strive for safety. We want to feel secure enough to trust others, and for them to trust us.
Few actions provide that sense of safety quite like putting up holiday lights.
It’s public. It’s communal. And it toes the line between conformity and expression.
Participating in this tradition helps us fit in. It indicates our goodwill. It broadcasts our good intentions.
In a world full of tribalism and deceit, we need those signals more than ever. But we don’t just need them in the winter. We need them in the summer too.
In fact, we need them year-round.
The challenge, then, is to apply the message from the holiday lights tradition to the other 11 months of the year. To illuminate our lives the way we illuminate our homes. To spread kindness and build trust, even when the overt reminders aren’t all around us.
We have the power to make these objectives a reality. But only if we let the light within us guide the way.
Let’s start today.