12.10.2007 - 11:31 a.m.

Winter sure is interesting. In Maryland in particular�though I know a lot of people who think of their state as the one in particular�winter isn�t very sure of itself. This time it came in over a three-day storm; nothing spectacular, exactly, but several days of cutting, blustery wind, the kind that makes your sinuses tingle, and then cold, cold rain. Maryland doesn�t really do snow until it�s good and certain it�s time.

I worked late, these nights. I drove home in the dark, both hands on the frigid wheel, guessing at each moment which puddles were liquid and which ones were maybe ice. Around me, scattered Christmas lights shone through the drizzle, the light spreading wetly across the windshield with every swipe of the blades.

I love Christmas lights. They�re so cheery, even in the rain, maybe especially in the rain. And evergreens, wreaths and trees and runners on people�s railings. And yet, I�d never decorated myself, not since I lived with my parents�it always just seemed sad, to decorate a dorm room or a campus townhouse or an apartment I rented no more than half of.

This year, though, we were ambushed by Boy Scouts selling door wreaths. And really, once you own a door wreath (it smells so wonderful, every time you come home) you might as well string up some of the lights that used to go around the edge of your dorm room ceilings and pick up a tree. Just a little two-foot table tree, because we own exactly four ornaments. (A cheap ball ornament a college friend gave everyone at a party the year after graduation, a snowman that I think came free with some other Christmas-y gift I got someone one year, and two wedding-memorial ornaments).

We don�t have a star or an angel or anything. I can neither confirm nor deny that the tree's top is the site of an epic lightsaber battle between lego Luke and lego Darth Vader.

And it won�t be a functional tree� like usual, we�re going up to my parents� for Christmas, so all the present-exchanging and stockings and things will be up there� but it�s ours. And I like the living room with all that light in it. Even if, because it�s one of only two strings we had, the light is purple.

-stonebridge

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