Lighting the Long Night

The neighbor across the street, kitty-corner, the one who adores his strip of lawn (greenest for blocks around), was out stringing lights just a couple of hours ago. Some folks already have theirs up, and as Solstice and Christmas approach, when night falls mid-afternoon, more and more lights will twinkle the landscape to life when it's stone dark at four-thirty in the afternoon.

Are Christmas lights intended to commerate the birth of Christ or bring the missing beauty of illumination to the neighborhood during the season of long nights?

Taopoet once read that Christ is thought to have been born in April, closer to Easter, which of course remembers the day he ascended. It is said Christmas was integrated by the Pagans under Roman influence. Easier to absorb the Christ fellow into Solstice than to fight him, and he seems like a fine man to celebrate, so what the heck?

This year, like every year, we'll celebrate the pagan traditions of bringing in the tree and decorating it, decking the halls, gathering with family and friends, overeating amazing foods, and overdrinking (gently) sweet, hot, or (and) alcoholic beverages. We'll put up lights against the long and early nights, anticipating, then celebrating the return of longer days and the promise of spring to come!