Have you got the holiday season out of your system yet?
The menorahs are put back on the high shelf, the ornaments are packed away, and the tree has been disposed of one way or another.
Now that it’s been a week or more since you’ve heard a Christmas tune, how about one more whirl through the “Nite Lites” Christmas light display at the Jackson County Fairgrounds?
A couple nights before Christmas, we drove by the fairgrounds and, really, it looked like a wonderland. We don’t see things like this in Vermont. We needed to immerse ourselves in it. It didn’t disappoint. It went on for ages.
They had light displays for everything, from storybook characters to dinosaurs to Santa, his sleigh, and the reindeer; from elves, to Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the wise men; from a candy cane-making machine, to a train, to a canon “shooting” presents over the cars and into Santa’s bag; from Santa reading a book called “The Salesman” (someone knows why, but we sure don’t) to a snowman and an elf “tossing” a snowflake back and forth.
Our favorite display was of a reindeer, standing on his hind hooves, tossing a bowling ball. The lights lit in just the right order so that it looked like the ball was tossed through the air and the pins were hit, scattering in white light.
It was weird, a bit kitschy, and wholly beautiful, bright and celebratory. It was just a whole lot of artificial lights, strung over metal frames. And it was magical. That kind of magic where half of it is generated by your willingness to just believe, and laugh and let it flow, to take it for what it is and find the joy in it.
A couple nights later, we went through it again. Why not? And then on our drive back home after Christmas, we discovered that Syracuse does their own light display along the lake. Yes, of course, we went through that one, too.
Grongar 