Christmas Lights. In plethora.
I am a bit of a scrooge. Christmas lights are only pretty to me a good, solid week after Thanksgiving. Before then, I really do not like them. No matter how elegant or tasteful they are.
BUT....I grew up in the country where my house was surrounded by farms and a large expanse of land. The stars in the country are so bright and there are so many of them! The sky is so pitch black and so big. Sitting on my deck at night, or swinging in the hammock at night, or sitting in the hot tub on the deck.....it is the most astounding thing to lay back and stare with your jaw dropped at the sky. There are many things that I love about living in the city now, but returning home....the stars are just something that the city's got nothing on! I might even go so far as to say the stars are what I come home for. (but the people are equally amazing as well!)
You can hop in the car and wind around all the back country roads for 10 minutes. It will be so dark that you will drive slow to be careful for deer. At one point, you will be driving up this hill and just when you hit the crest of it, your eyes will fill with so much wonder just like they do when you're star gazing in my back yard. Your eyes have spent the last 10 minutes getting used to the dark and when you see all this light you blink and, like a child in disbelief, rub your eyes. What lies in the valley before you is the largest display of christmas lights you have ever seen! I'm not talking about the eighth of an acre that your city neighbor packed as many lights onto as possible. This place is a little over 3 acres. So picture that. Three acres of lights in the middle of nowhere! You can't help but smile and no matter how much of a Scrooge you're trying to be....a smile finds itself on your face.
