Who’d have thought that posting a picture of lit Christmas lights in April would set off such a heated argument?
It snowed last night. It snowed quite a bit and frankly I’m pretty sick of the snow. We’ve had snow on the ground since Thanksgiving. I know this because my ex husband took me on a motorcycle ride on Thanksgiving and it started to snow right as we returned home.
We’ve had snow on the ground ever since. It’s come close to melting but there has been visible snow for the past 5 months.
It’s okay, I live in Minnesota and we’re used to snow here. Lots of snow.
Spring snowstorms aren’t unheard of here but usually they happen in March.
It’s April. May is only a week and some odd days away.
I’ve had it with snow but there is nothing I can do about it. There is no one who can do anything about it. I could be like one of my neighbors and yell and scream about it but that doesn’t make it go away and it doesn’t make it easier to handle. Is does scare children and pets, however.
No, as much as I like to complain it doesn’t help so last night I embraced the snow and turned on my Christmas lights that I hadn’t taken down from two years ago.
I was going to last summer when I was thinking about painting the window trim but I never got to it so they remained up. Getting them up was a lot of work and I see no point in taking them down so I can put them back up again. Yeah, my neighbor thinks they look “ghetto” but it’s not like I turn them on after New Years.
I mentioned that I had turned on my Christmas lights on Facebook. One of my friends suggested that I post a picture so I did.
And then all hell broke loose.
You can check out my timeline on Facebook to see the conversation. If you aren’t friends with me you will need to friend me first. While you’re friending and fiddling with Facebook be sure to like my book Minnesota Nice.
I’m always amazed at what offends people. At first I thought she was joking but it soon became clear that she wasn’t. People rush to judgement all the time and bad things happen because of it. I get it, that’s just life. But this was deeper than that. I can’t really wrap my head around what was so offensive about the lights. Religion got brought into it and the conversation quickly devolved to crazy talk. 86 comments later and we were discussing The Onion and Stephen Fry. There might have even been a quote from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Life is too short to do a lot of things. Rushing to judgement is one of them as is being so easily offended by someone’s choice in home decor. It is my home and if I want to leave my lights up all year and even light them I will. I won’t, I think they look stupid, but I have the right to do whatever I want and telling me to do one thing only makes me want to do the other, even if I don’t really care.
So, are you offended by Christmas lights left up long after the holiday season is over?
With all the shit going on in the world, it’s pretty damn amazing some of the things people will choose to be offended by. Fuck ’em. I like the lights.
I know, right? It’s crazy what gets some people worked up.
We have snow too, and some people have their Christmas lights still out, and yes they should have taken the damn stuff down already, but really who cares? Why get offended or worked up? I am with you — focus on other stuff, people!