Not feeling like Christmas? There is peace and serenity in the lights.
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Version 0 of 1. Each year I find it hard to get into the holiday spirit, but this season has been the worst. It has been marked by debilitating deficits of time, and for days I’d focused obsessively on the shopping I hadn’t done, the cards I hadn’t sent, my urgent need to secure a keepsake ornament. More than ever, I’ve found myself consumed by the season’s obligations, unleavened by its joys. It was in that mood that we happened to drive past a Tudor-style home in Northwest Washington and a holiday scene that beggared description. A combination of lights and wreaths, trees, mangers, candy canes, globes, doves, angels, snowmen — two kinds — curving around an expanse of property making for the glowy-est, most riotous, seasonal display I’d ever seen. I asked my husband to slow the car to better catch the crowd snapping photos, and as he did so, I heard a choir singing hallelujahs on the lawn. Suddenly, it began to feel like Christmas. Maybe it was the extremity of the display. Maybe it was the huddle of people or the music. Or perhaps it was just the unity of experience — a chorus of aahs — combined with the thought that someone had gone to such lengths to offer up a gift of spirit to us strangers in the night. Turns out it’s a little of all of those things, and the display is a tradition that has been going on for many years. A few nights later, I went back to take it all in. The Wednesday sun has not fully set when the candy canes light up. This is followed in quick succession by the “Peace on Earth” globe and the “Season’s Greetings” sign on the fence of wreaths that wraps around the basketball court. Soon, the 500,000-light display is in full, dazzling glory. Volunteers start putting up the decorations in October, says Earrol Price, a member of the United House of Prayer for All People, an evangelistic church that tends to the annual display at the home occupied by its leader, Bishop C.M. Bailey. The lights come on Dec. 1 and run through early January. Price, a defense contractor, began tending the display with his father when he was 14. He’s 55 now, and the responsibility has fallen to him. He stops by the house every night on his way home to Gaithersburg, Md., to turn on the lights and check on the display. He has seen generations of people come through. “They bring their family and kids,” Price says. “I’m not really in the Christmas spirit in October, but, boy, by the time the lights come on and you hear the oohs and aahs and people stop in the intersection.” He shakes his head. “I think it’s just amazing!” says 7-year-old Amit. He’s with his mother, who declines to give her name, and two younger brothers. “We’re Jewish, so we don’t celebrate,” the mom says, “but we celebrate the Christmas spirit.” “My favorite part is the whole house!” gushes 4-year-old Matan. They’ve met up with family friends, Katie Lampadarios and her two girls from Silver Spring, Md. Zoia, 6, is eager to show me her favorite snowman and starts running. It has been many years since I chased after my own 6-year-olds, but I fall easily into a familiar pace behind her. Seconds later, she stops running and starts jumping up and down. “Because it’s so giant! It’s taller than my dad. He’s 40 and Bulgarian,” she says. I nod. “I get it,” I tell her. The children run the sidewalk as their mothers visit and try to keep up. Vanessa Caby walks to the display with her young niece and nephew. Her baby son is being pushed in a stroller by her best friend, Bradley Chambers. He had noticed the display going up during his morning runs, but this is the first time either of them has seen it. “This is so exciting to me,” Caby says. “I wish my newborn was up.” She hadn’t been feeling much of Christmas. “You get older and things change,” the 24-year-old says. But, “seeing this, you feel the Christmas spirit.” “Even if you’re not a Christmas person, it puts you in a good mood,” Chambers says. The evening settles in for its stay, and a line of cars passes by. Some pull to the side of the road to take it all in, others slow their roll around the circle long enough to stick camera phones out of the window. Sometimes, you hear holiday music on their car radios. Roy Ashley lives a few miles away. He used to bring his children every year. Now he chases after his grandson. People come and people leave. They take videos, or just linger at the lights for a moment of community that feels just like Christmas. For more by O’Neal, visit wapo.st/lonnae. |