A string of illuminated glass bulbs, hung for the holidays, may seem like no big deal, so common it’s easy to pass them without really noticing. But we humans are simple beings who sometimes communicate best in the most basic ways.
Lights on a cold, dark night can be a welcome, even heartwarming sight. And in gloomy economic times, or other trying circumstances, they can mean even more.
One study found that outdoor holiday displays can tell a lot about a neighborhood. Whether found in wealthy or working-class areas, they represent a community’s spirit or “social capital,” even indicating how well neighbors care for one another, says David Sloan Wilson, a professor in Binghamton University’s departments of biology and anthropology.
“One way that neighborhoods express their feelings of neighborliness is to decorate the house, not the inside but the outside,” Mr. Wilson says. “It is an expression of good will, basically.”
A simple gesture, but one that touches and comforts people, and brings them together.
Here are a few stories about the impact holiday lights can have, from a big city neighborhood that united to light its main street to a small town that came together to try to brighten the holiday for a dying boy.
Sparkling Harlem
It was as if Scrooge had invaded New York’s Harlem neighborhood. Or so residents implied.
Facing an impossibly tight budget, the board that oversees the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, 125th Street, made a difficult decision: It cut funding for holiday lights.
When residents saw their normally festive business district looking spiritless, they complained, loudly.
“It was a bad Christmas in the office,” recalled Barbara Askins, president and CEO of the 125th Street Business Improvement District. The lack of holiday lights last December riled residents more than any issue in recent memory.
This year, with the budget woes persisting, Mrs. Askins had an idea. What if she and her staff could persuade the community to donate the $60,000 needed to decorate the entire length of the street?
The “Harlem, Light It Up” campaign began this fall, with fundraising parties and a song and music video.
Big donations came in from nearby Columbia University and the City College of New York. Businesses, churches and community organizations pitched in. Residents gave what they could.
It added up quickly. And the lights - many of them incorporated in new sparkling decorations of snowflakes and shooting stars were purchased and installed along the bustling street.
Earlier this month, hundreds of people filled a neighborhood plaza for the official lighting. They cheered.
Lights, with honor
Matt Matdes, a New York firefighter, knows all about heroes.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, he and his co-workers have become symbols of bravery for a nation. But for him, it’s all about the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces.
He still remembers his grandfather talking about going off to World War II and missing his first Christmas with his own son, Mr. Matdes’ father. So Mr. Matdes, who also owns a seasonal decorations store on the side, was quick to volunteer when he heard about the Decorated Family Program for military families that his store’s parent company began seven years ago.
He gathered up his brother and some buddies one recent Saturday and headed to Hempstead, N.Y., to put string after string of lights on the home of Shelia Irby, a member of the Air Force reserve. All of the decorations were donated by him.
They were there because Mrs. Irby’s 21-year-old son submitted his mom’s name, since she had been away for the past two Christmases on active duty.
“This is our first real Christmas together in a long time,” son Rayvon Johnson, a college student, said. “I wanted it to be special.”
So Mr. Matdes and his crew put them up when Mrs. Irby was away for the weekend.
“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed when she first saw the lights, which trimmed the roof line and windows.
She took photos of them. She hugged her son.
“Lights, to me, are about joy,” she said. “And to know that someone did this for me well, that makes it even more special.”
One last Christmas
There was nothing more doctors could do for 2-year-old Dax Locke. So his devastated parents brought him back to their central Illinois home, in October last year.
All they could hope for was to have one last Christmas with their son, who had a rare form of leukemia.
Julie Locke remembers hating to leave the security of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, where Dax had undergone two unsuccessful bone- marrow transplants.
Then she and husband Austin drove into their neighborhood in Washington, Ill. It wasn’t even Halloween, and yet the houses were covered in red, green and white holiday lights and decorations - all of it for Dax.
The Lockes broke down and cried as they looked at all the lights, some spelling out Dax’s name.
When their rosy-cheeked, towheaded little boy awoke, as sick as he was, he grinned with delight.
Neighbor Trish Hurtgen had no idea that the decorations would spread through town the way they did, even going up in other parts of the country and on overseas military bases.
She had simply made a flier and gone door to door with her family, asking nearby neighbors to decorate for Dax.
“I can’t say that we ever expected it to be what it turned out to be. But that’s often how life is. Sometimes people respond in ways you’d never imagine.”
Dax did live to see that last Christmas. He died Dec. 30, 2009, in a hospital room near his home that nurses also decorated with strings of multicolored lights.
His story and the community’s response inspired Matthew West, a Nashville-based singer, to write a newly released song titled “One Last Christmas.” It’s one of many ways people are supporting a fund the Lockes started in hopes of raising $1.6 million, enough money to run the St. Jude hospital for one day. So far, the Lockes have raised about $250,000.
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