Light the lights

“You must really like Christmas.”

A group of us had been in the park working on lights for the Medford Kiwanis Club. We were stripping the old lights off of the curling sculpture and putting on new ones.

For the sake of a potential community trivia contest answer, the curler’s name is Emily — like from the Clifford the Big Red Dog book series. And yes, she is left handed and has yellow hair and it is a coincidence that my daughter Elizabeth who loved the Clifford books growing up just happens to also have yellow hair and is a left handed curler. At least my daughter’s hair is naturally yellow, over the Thanksgiving weekend she dyed it green like something between the Grinch and Oscar the grouch and the science experiment you found in the back of the refrigerator when making room for the Thanksgiving leftovers. But that is all beside the point.

For those wondering, putting lights on the display frames is a tedious process involving a significant number of tiny zip ties and a great deal of patience. Like many tedious tasks it went faster when you had people to talk with. I had been talking about my dreams for future light displays and how this year the goal was to get the Tombstone Bandshell decorated. I am still holding out hope to eventually get the lighted metal sculptures of the 12 days of Christmas but at a price tag of between $15,000 and $20,000 that remains a dream that is on my list of things to do if I ever win the lottery.

The comment about my apparent love of Christmas came as an observation from a fellow Kiwanis member noting my excitement and animation when talking about future plans for the Kiwanis portion of the display in the city park. I equally get excited by displays being done by the groups like Rotary, the Lions Club and the Knights of Columbus.

Later, as I was finishing up attaching the lights on my own, I was thinking about the comment.

In absolute honesty I am not any more Christmasy a person than anyone else, despite my roundness and increasingly white beard having people accusing me of wanting to be like Santa Claus. I like working with Christmas lights more out of a reminder of my Dad. He loved decorating for our yard for Christmas and it was a running joke in the family that if you left something in the yard for more than a day he would have lights on it.

I feel like he is with me in spirit when I working to untangle a bundle of lights or silently cussing out the person — more than likely myself — who put them away backward with the socket end out rather than the plug end. Beyond that, putting up lights gives me something to do to push away the darkness of the season.

I have learned that if you keep busy enough, the darkness can’t catch up with you as easily. It is in the darkness that you overthink things and all your doubts and worries march out and line up in display formation. I know from experience that it is easy to step away and spiral down into the dark pit. It is really hard to climb out once you get down there though and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

So instead, like many people I find ways to keep the darkness pushed off for a little while at least.

I imagine it is similar for the few hundred of us who braved the cold on Friday night in the Medford city park to listen to music, see the lights, get warmed by a massive bonfire and wowed by another impressive fireworks display from Big Daddy’s Fireworks.

For another night at least, we were able to keep darkness was away.

Each of us has ways we cope with the darkness and the hollow and loneliness it brings even when surrounded by friends and family. Many of us have become experts at faking it and putting on happy faces as we feel weighed down by the darkness that has caught up with us.

Any burden is easier to carry when it is shared. Make a point to ask the questions and to listen when checking up on friends, family and coworkers. For all their brightness and joy, the holiday season is a dark time of year for many people. It is important to be there with a light, even if it is a sputtering candle in a windstorm.

The dangers in the darkness are very real. But together we can keep both the real and metaphorical darkness away.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.