wrinkly

i found my first white hair. i'm old! getting closer and closer to my 42 year limit. i've decided to save it for posterity's sake. it's like the first tooth i lost. hmm... i think i still have all my baby teeth hidden somewhere in my room. gross.

for christmas this year, my family and i flew to la to visit extended family. while there, my aunt took us kids around to see all the christmas lights that people had on display in their front yards. some were insanely extravagant with lights everywhere and multiple nativity scenes and random big light up snowmen or charlie brown etc. all these lights drew tons of traffic to these neighborhoods. so much so that no one could find parking, there were cops there directing traffic AND there were people selling those colorful flashlights with fiberoptics, lightup santa hats, and whatever other lightup souvenir you can think of. those holiday movies about crazy fathers competing against neighbors for putting up the biggest and brightest decorations are true! whole neighborhoods promote these light up festivities. i feel badly for the houses who don't want to participate but still have to deal w/ the influx of people. the thing is, the lights weren't even aesthetically pleasing. they seemed to be placed haphazardly, planned with the thought of how to place the most lights in the yard. the waste of electricity.... but maybe this is the way people share the holiday season with their community. in reality i think it's just about who has more money to buy lights and to pay for huge electric bills.

there were some cool light ideas that i did like, though. in one neighborhood, there were a lot of huge gigantic pine trees that towered over the houses. the firemen every year use their tall ladders to put up christmas lights on those tall trees. there was also one neighborhood in Greensboro, nc that got together and made their light decorations out of wire and lights. most ended up looking like balls of lights, but some were creatively made to look like stars and other shapes. the decorations looked cool and i liked the idea of people creating their own decorations together, bonding together as a community. i believe it's a relatively new tradition - only 3 years old. hope it continues for them. (although this probably also draws the crowds and sucks for those who don't want to take part).

so yea, i'll probably end up like those grumpy scrooge people during christmas time who complain about the traffic and the lights and the christmas spirit. hooray!