Christmas Lights in the neighborhood, 20 December 2021

Okay, I said yesterday’s post would be the last before the holiday. So I lied. This one seems to be a more appropriate one to lead into Christmas.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Christmas. As a young kid, I loved it, as most kids do. Then I got older, got sick of family and “obligation”, and really got sick of most Christmas music. Then I moved away from family to the other side of the continent. The holiday season from Thanksgiving through New Years can be awkward and tough for us folks, especially if you don’t head home to family. You have to make your own family. Thanksgiving was always easier, there were several “orphan” gatherings I’d hit up. Christmas would be a bit tougher, and there were a few lonely ones. ^{1 and 2} Thankfully I now have a “family” of Emee and her kids to make my Christmas.

One thing that I do dig about Christmas is the lights. There’s something about a festival of lights during the darkest part of the year. Maybe that’s why so many cultures have a festival of lights at Winter Solstice? Every city has something in the way of a Christmas Lights Tradition. Portland’s got Peacock Lane, ³ a 1/5 mile strip of what should be SE 40th Ave between Stark and Belmont. Every Christmas all the houses set up elaborate lights and displays, attracting thousands. It’s a bit of a zoo. Thankfully Emee and I discovered the lights at Starkwood last year.

But there’s plenty of lights just in my little corner of the North Tabor neighborhood. I decided to take a walk around the ‘hood on the eve of Monday June 20th. The rain that had been a steady presence for two days had stopped. The sky cleared, showing the waning moon. I still had some Portra 400 loaded in the Minolta SR-T 101, so why not?

So please enjoy the photos I got from that dry but cold evening. And Merry Christmas!

¹ The worst was probably Christmas 2003. I was alone at my house, my roommates had gone home. I got sick so I was in bed most of the day. Then the following day I found out that my grandmother had passed away from a stroke on Christmas Day.

² And while New Years shouldn’t matter, after several sub-par ones in the mid-aughts I started my own tradition of going out of town for the New Year.

3 While there are definitely peacocks in Portland, as far as I know there are none on Peacock Lane.

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