The holiday season is now in full swing following last weekend’s light parade, heralding the arrival of Santa Claus. The Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce once again organized a beautiful, and colorful, parade to officially kick off Christmas.
If you have driven downtown, or taken a stroll along Main Street, you are sure to notice the stunning new lights and topper adorning the town’s tree. Kudos go out to Jane Torres, executive director for the Chamber, for raising the funds to purchase new lights, and banners along Main Street.
The Temple Theatre is also back in the holiday spirit, playing Christmas tunes from atop the marquee. It’s a simple, and yet charming effect to enhance the shopping experience when strolling the streets of downtown Houlton.
Speaking of lights, are you a colored or white light person? It is a topic of conversation that comes up every year at our house.
Each year, my wife lobbies for white lights to be placed upon the tree. “Think of how elegant they will look,” she will say. And every year, the argument always falls on deaf ears as our children beg and plead with me to cast my vote for multi-colored lights, which, of course, I do.
It’s not because I don’t like white lights. In fact, I have to admit, before we had children, my wife actually swayed me from colored to white lights for a few years. And yes, they were quite elegant. I even went so far as to buy one of those sets that twinkle and blink in various patterns with a push of a button because lights that don’t blink are just plain boring to me. It was her little way of letting me have somewhat of a say in the process.
But when I think back to my days as a child, we always went with colored lights. White lights are just boring when you’re a child. For years, we had all red lights on our tree, but when it came time to replace those ancient bulbs with new ones, multi-colored was the way we went. For me, multi-colored lights and children go hand-in-hand.
I’ve tried explaining to my wife that once the children are older, she will be able to have her way and do a lovely tree with white (boring) lights. But for now, the tree is for the kids, as evidenced by the multitude of homemade ornaments that hang on it. Yes, there are a couple of New England Patriots ornaments and there is even a Gene Simmons ornament hiding somewhere in the back
So we compromise at our home. We use white candles in the windows. I even put white lights outside last year, but they were the newer “LED” type which tend to look more bluish than white. As luck would have it, both sets lasted exactly one year before failing to illuminate this year.
They certainly don’t seem to make the lights — or anything else for that matter — like they used to. We have a set of fully functioning older bulbs from the 1970s that still work perfectly fine, but new sets seem to die out after just a few short years.
And why is it every year, no matter how neat and tidy the lights get put away they turn into a jumbled pile of knots when you bring them back out the following year? Maybe my wife does it in the hopes that I will get frustrated and go buy new, white ones? Hmmmm….
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@nepublish.com or 32-2281.
