Light fare

Kim and I hopped in the car the other night, looking for something to do. Usually, that means just driving around because anything else in a car at our age most likely would end up in cramps, knots, strains or possibly something even worse, perhaps even prompting a visit to the emergency room.

Try explaining that one to the attending physician.

"We just got tangled up somehow. I don't know how it happened. But my neck hurts."

So we decided to look at Christmas lights instead.

This turned out to be a good idea. We like to look at Christmas lights. Looking at lights helps put us in the mood (not that mood) for the season. We like to see if our friends did something new this year, or perhaps which neighborhoods upped their game from a year ago.

Like our neighborhood.

This is what our block looks like at night.

 Last year, just for fun and because we decorate our homes for Christmas anyway, our block on Second Avenue participated in the Lexington Recreation Department's "Light Up The Block" contest. And, somehow, we were recognized as the department's best lighted block. That was nice.

This year, we started early. We had a socially-distanced workshop in a neighbor's carport a couple weeks ago to make lighted chicken wire Christmas balls to hang from our oak and maple trees. Our block already had some last year, but now we have perhaps twice that number.

And while it's not quite Greensboro's Sunset Hills, it is amazing. We no longer need street lamps – and probably won't need them for at least the next several weeks.

On top of that, almost every house is decorated. Even our house added a spotlight this year to illuminate a wreath above our porch, thereby adding to the block's high wattage usage.

And the spirit seems to have spread. The blocks on either side of us – the 300 and 500 blocks – have also decked themselves out. It's really cool to drive down Second Avenue now.

I'm kind of hoping that if our block should happen to be recognized again, that the judges expand the parameters to make it a "Light Up The Neighborhood" contest. That would be better. This really seems to be a combined, rather than a competitive, effort.

I'm not sure how Covid comes into play here. Kim and I noticed in our drive around town that not as many homes, overall, seem to be decorated this year, even though some places put up their lights before Thanksgiving in an apparent effort to run the pandemic out of town.

And I've been told that judging will not be done by community members riding around town in a van as they did last year, mesmerized (or hypnotized) by the lights. That's a Covid no-no. Maybe walking tours instead. Or a parade of judges riding through the neighborhood in their own cars. It remains to be seen how it all pans out.

As long as they don't show up in the emergency room with aching necks.