Posted to Resource Articles
by Jill Brooke on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 8:40am
Americans may penny-pinch in other areas this season, but Christmas means seeing the light — and for some, the more the merrier. Come December, many families take their competitive spirit to new heights, because if there were an Olympics for holiday lights, we’d take the gold.
For example, in Anchorage, Alaska, the Lorangers shine 20,000 bulbs on a homemade Santa fishing from a pool of lights. At the Wills’ home in Mendota Falls, Minnesota, some 150 candy canes light up the exterior. A thousand miles west in Tuscon, Arizona, cacti sparkle. Down in Marble Falls, Texas, an electrified twirling lariat spells out Merry Christmas Y’All.
According to David Seidman, author of Holiday Lights!, Christmas lights began as a winter solstice ritual. When the nights grew long and bitter cold, people would bring in evergreens and burn slabs of wood. Eventually, this became the Yule log, and candle-lit trees soon followed.
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