Martha’s aunt Lizette told us about Harkers Island when we first started coming here, but I’m not sure she ever came during the Christmas season. We told ourselves last week that we wanted to drive out there again at night to see the Christmas lights display, and last night was a perfect time to do so. We left well before sunset thinking there might be bumper-to-bumper traffic as there had been at the Newport display two weeks ago, but the roads were nearly deserted. It was a beautiful time of evening with a gorgeous sunset behind us as we drove. I stopped to take this picture at the little marina where shrimpers are always docked.
As we arrived at Harkers Island itself, the sunset in the west continued lighting up the sky, orange and then red all along the horizon. It was absolutely beautiful. Pickup trucks were parked along Back Sound; folks had driven out simply to watch, and we joined them there. It seemed to linger forever, even after the sun had finally disappeared, lighting up the clouds along the horizon for what seemed like an hour.
Had the Christmas lights been disappointing, we would have been satisfied with this display we were watching. But they were not disappointing at all. We have always enjoyed this simple pleasure of driving out and looking at lights in Highlands. We knew where all of the best displays were, and by best I mean not necessary the largest display, but sometimes a simple, tasteful display. On the road between Asheville and Highlands for many years, there seemed to be a friendly competition between two or three houses. I still remember that one house had everything out on the lawn: Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus in the front yard, Santa and his reindeer on the roof, Frosty by the driveway, and even the Grinch. They had all the bases covered! But just down the road there might be a house with a single simple candle in every window, which was even more lovely.
Christmas trees originated in Germany when folks started bringing these holdover from pagan times inside their homes and decorating them, and it is probably true that Martin Luther first added lighted candles to the tree. (That sounds like a pretty dangerous combination to me.) When electric lights came along, our modern strings of lights were used, the kind that most of us grew up with. Martha remembers them, too, and how bulbs would burn out and have to be replaced, or perhaps someone in the family had the “magic touch” and could tap it and it would come back on again. I am thinking lights escaped into the yard in a kind of Christmas sprawl, sometimes just thrown loosely over the boxwoods out front, sometimes climbing up trees and railings onto the roof. The most spectacular display we saw, as is so often the case, was in front of this humble single-wide trailer.
Clark Griswold would have been proud! Some of the other displays were more subdued, and some consisted of simply wreaths and red ribbons.
The most popular decoration out here was this anchor, which every home seemed to have in their front yards.
Nearly every home along the road was decorated in some way. Not only did these residents take pride in their homes, but their displays said something about them, too. You could tell that some of the decorations went back years and years, tall plastic candles along the front door railings lovingly maintained, and in one yard a red lantern like the kind the Town of Highlands used to hang from the utility poles on Main Street.
The drive back was a challenge for Martha, who had agreed to take the after-dark shift because her night vision is better than mine. Now that it was truly dark, the road ahead was filled with vehicles approaching, most of them those huge pickup trucks they have out here with blinding lights. We were glad to cross the bridge and return to the snug condo, where in no time we had our own modest lights going, on the tiny tree and on the balcony, facing the ocean and visible to nobody except us inside and those who might be out on the walkway at night.
Our lights have been noticed by some, though, and they have commented on them. This morning I awoke early, before sunrise, for my Tai Chi. I had gone just a few steps on the walkway when I realized it was slick with ice; I turned and gingerly tip-toed back down, and at the same time a woman and her little dog emerged from the building. “Ah, you beat me out here this morning!” she said.
“Careful,” I warned her, “That walkway is very slick!”
“Oh, I’m just going out on the grass,” she said. “Are you a new owner?” I explained that we were staying in Martha’s aunt’s condo, escaping a colder climate. “Are you the ones with the pretty Christmas lights?” she asked, and gestured up above to our balcony.
“Yes, that’s us.” Then she chuckled a little and said, “I call you the Tai Chi man!” I thought that was funny. And a little unnerving that she might be watching me every morning out on the dune-top deck.
The Tai Chi man! Out there on display for everyone to see.
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