On the 30th Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me...

There's an interesting phenomena going on in this area, and I'm not quite sure if it means anything, or not. I'd guesstimate that about a third of the homes in the area put up some sort of outdoors Christmas lighting and/or display. and normally I'd expect the great majority of those houses to take down their decorations around the first week of January. Oh, there'd always be slackers. Those gutter-hanging icicle lights must be a particular bitch to either put or take down, because the vast majority of homeowners always seem to leave 'em up once they've finally been put in place. And I remember once in our old neighborhood in Alexandria, there were two inhabitants who must have been in some sort of warped competition to see who could keep their evergreen wreaths up as long as possible on their front doors They stayed up, month after month - deeply sunburned fire hazards, like some sort of husk of Christmas past. I don't know if they actually were finally taken down by the owners, or just blew away. But it wasn't until late June that they disappeared, (I am not making this up). And we've all seen the poor old Halloween jack-o-lanterns, left out until Christmas itself. Some people just can't get it together to pick up after themselves. But this year, I'd say easily a third of the folks with Christmas decorations have them still up - even lighting them at night. It doesn't seem like laziness, not in those numbers. Or if it is, it is a form of communal sloth that I've not been used to. Are economic fears making folks try to hold onto a representation of joy? Is perpetual Christmas now some sort of folk art? Has my old neighbors' scenes of competitive decoration rot spread to the new neighborhood? I just don't know. It's a little strange.