All Night Long

In my last post, I talked about Christmas traditions including walking around the neighbourhood looking at lights.  Today I want to talk about something that isn't so much a tradition but more of a trend.  It seems that more and more people leave their lights on either 24/7 or at least from dusk to dawn.

Today, at 7:00, when I took the dog for his morning walk around the block, there were at least 8 places with Christmas lights still glowing away, including the senior's housing apartment building behind us.  When I was younger, while it wasn't a law, the unwritten rule was Christmas lights came on at supper time and went off at bed time.  The exception being that the Christmas tree would be on all day on Christmas day.

Over the past few years, I have expanded the Christmas Day rule to include Christmas Eve (our wedding anniversary).  This past weekend, I had the tree on all day and the outdoor decorations were turned on well before supper.  I suppose with LED lights it is not that big a deal to leave lights on for the long haul, unlike in my youth when the last two weeks of December would cost more in hydro than any full month of the year.