Wednesday, December 15, 2010

I don't mean "fungus" in a bad way...



Greg and I went to Moundridge, Kansas tonight to eat at a restaurant called Block 32. I had bought a discount certificate (kind of like a Groupon, but a local deal) and it needed to be used by the end of the year. So, we decided we'd go give it a try.

Afterwards we drove around looking at lights in Moundridge and then went on up to McPherson to do the same.

I have to explain that Greg and I are experienced light observers, and we have entire categories of decorations. There's "anal," which is the style where every light is perfectly oriented, cut to precisely fit the structure. It seems only an engineering type brain could make it work.

At the other end of the spectrum is "slathered," which means applying lights to every surface that can support them. This style has little regard for how "tidy" they are. Excess lights are left dangling after windows are outlined, or trail off into a nearby bush.

We like both categories, and everything in between. It's all festive. We love the effort put forth. We also love to see people putting up more lights when we drive around. Not sure why, but we do.

Tonight we drove by a house that had one strand of lights woven around parts of their porch banister in a totally random way. I pointed it out and said, "I love it." Greg said, "Me too." As we drove on I joked, "They let their kid do it." Greg said, "And it's probably a wonderful memory for the kid."

A few houses down there was one that was a little more neat but not much. Greg looked over and said, "Their kid is older. That's the only difference here." We laughed and drove around the block to see them again. All Christmas lights are wonderful.

Later in the night we drove by a house with icicle lights where some were hanging from the eaves and some were more horizontal on the roof. I referred to the "haphazard application of lights" and Greg said, "yes, the icicle lights look more like the house has fungus growing on it."

I was chuckling and said, "fungus... that's the quote of the night... not a word you associate with looking at Christmas lights... fungus..." Then, as if I needed to explain myself I said, "But I don't mean fungus in a bad way." We enjoyed it enough we had to drive around the block and look at it again.

We had a great time looking at lights - of all varieties. I lean more toward the slathering end of things when doing my own Christmas decorating, but I enjoy all kinds of decorations. I appreciate all efforts to make the world pretty and sparkly. I think we should do it more than just a few weeks at Christmas.

Why can't we have more pretty and sparkly? Fungus-like or otherwise.