Christmas Lights...

One of the things that I have always LOVED about Christmas is the lights! When we were young, we had the big lights on the house and the medium lights on the tree. (There were no twinkle or mini lights yet. We are talking LONG, LONG AGO!) When one light burnt out they all went out, so the thing to do was to make sure that you always had a stash of good working replacement bulbs. Then when the string went out, you would start at the bottom by the plug and take the first bulb out and replace it with the good one, and just keep on right up the string until the bad bulb was discovered. Heaven help you if there were more than 1 bulb on the string out.

Later as we grew older, the bulbs became clear glass, and they were wired singly so that when one went out the rest stayed on. That was a miracle. I liked to putz with the tree when I was little. Rearrange the ornaments, add more icicles, (hanging tinsel) which in those days were really aluminum foil cut into thin strips and hung ever so carefully over each branch. Once on the tree it was there forever. You did not re use it.

Later the White Twinkle lights came out, and then the multi lights. And they blinked off and on together, one string at a time, so either the whole tree stayed lit or one string at a time blinked on and off. I hated that. I have always been partial to the multi colored lights. The non-twinkling ones. As I grew and got my own decorations, I invested in the lights that we know today as mini lights. All different colors and steady burning. I have found that the fuses are becoming more standard now, as are the bulbs that are replaced. It is much easier to fix the lights on the tree.

We would take one night (sometimes Christmas eve) and drive around looking at all the lights on the houses, and the way they were strung around the windows and the edge of the roof. There were not a lot of extra-lighted decorations, just strings, and what we could do with those strings was magical.

Tonight Bob and I had our usual Friday Night Date night, and we are both BROKE, so when he asked what we are doing tonight, he was hoping I would say stay home and watch TV. FOOLED HIM!!! JJ

I said we are going to go look at lights. KOMO TV had several houses on the news, and one of them was on reservation road, so we went to see it. You could see the glow in the night sky miles before you got there.


xmas lights

This house was GORGEOUS! It had every tree trunk wrapped in colored rope lights, (another miracle invention) and every bush draped in colored netting lights. And several inflatable figures all tastefully done. I tried getting pictures, but cars kept driving by, so I only got a few clear ones.


Town Hall

We drove through Oak Harbor looking at the lights in the “city” and then came on back along Madrona Way into Coupeville. Coupeville is a small old Victorian town, and is kept historical looking by the town historical committee. The Cook Park was all lit, and so was the Rec Hall. And the Town Hall. It is so peaceful seeing these lights outlining the businesses on Front Street with out all of the commercial neon signing vying for room in your minds eye.


Front Street


Cook park

Coming home along the water, the fog was low and the lights were blurred by it making it seem so surreal. Kinda out of focus. Like my pictures…