An Open Letter to the White Bungalow Along Hwy 100

Dear Homeowner,

The wise writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that "for every thing there is a season" and that there is a time for everything under the sun.

Do you know what time it is right now?

A time for the cracking of sunroofs and the eating of Cadbury eggs. A time for scraping mud off shoes. A time for doffing parkas and turning faces to the lengthening daylight.

Do you know what time it is not?

A time for Christmas lights.

And yet.

Perhaps you meant it to be cheerful. Perhaps you thought that yesterday, the first day back to work after springing forward (a heinous thing, given that the 5:00 am alarm sounded when my body still thought it was 4:00 am), you would try to brighten my commute, slammed back into the darkness as it was.

Perhaps that is why you turned on your Christmas lights.

Now, I have some level of sympathy for season's greetings lasting into the new year. Consider the Ukrainians, for example. Also, January is cold. And dark. A bit of extra light is a lovely thing.

I also recognize that I write this somewhat from my own glass house, given that the vestiges of my Christmas tree still lie brown and brittle at the end of my driveway.

But (I must protest), this state of affairs is not in my control. That tree has been there since the first week of January, when I took it down in a timely fashion. Not so timely has been my garbage pickup, it would seem.

What is in your control is the light switch that you use to turn on (and - please - off) your house's holiday decor.

I beseech you - please let the wee hour morning darkness be. Soon enough our early sunsets will return. I can take a few more weeks of this. What I cannot take is something that mentally slams me back to the first days of winter and upcoming holidays, when I am still supposed to be excited about newly fallen snow.

Additionally, I wonder if perhaps you miss the irony of attempting to brighten my day at the end of a winter with epic proportions of snow with lights that are designed to look like icicles.

Humbly yours,

PM