As Christmas approaches one family tradition is to drive the neighborhoods enjoying the Christmas lighting displays everyone puts up. The last few years there have been less and less. I understand, as our own lighting display has been downsized. Last year many around our area protested a utilities rate hike in November set to reap the benefits of those who put up Christmas lighting displays. Yes, sadly we were one of those, since the year before our December utility bill had been a lot higher than in previous years. We couldn’t afford another huge increase, and the deliberate timing of the hike was deliberately grinchy, so we put up only the minimal lighting display. It was a sad year for enjoying Christmas lights displays. This year, the rate hike will be put off until January as in previous years, except last year. Wise decision utilities department. The lightening displays have returned, and ours included. The real point of this post is for many years, we watched a certain home in our area add to his homemade Christmas display and looked forward to seeing what had been added each year. It was not religious in nature, but fun. There were Peanuts characters, then Tweety Bird & its companions, Little Mermaid, the Grinch, Disney Characters, Winnie the Pooh and pals, just to name a few, all homemade. Spotlights illumined the display. Suddenly about four years ago, not only were there no new characters, but the display disappeared entirely. Each Christmas we checked, Continue Reading →