With no snow, still the season of lights

Lights can lift spirits, especially during the holiday season, and the Fox Theater is a great example of lights brightening the community.

Ronda Graff/MCFF

This past weekend, I hopped the train to Colorado in search of snow. Somehow, we have made it to the end of January with no significant snowfall in McCook or Southwest Nebraska. While we received snow while we were gone - almost enough to warrant getting out a shovel - it wasn’t enough to cross-country ski on, the reason for the trip.

While I know that I am in the minority when it comes to my love of winter and especially snow, many people are acknowledging that we need snow and lamenting the lack of moisture in McCook, Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas.

It is especially hard on me because my daughter is attending college in northwest Iowa and has had not one, not two, but five snow days at school. And if you know colleges, they don’t shut down unless absolutely necessary, so the snow is piling up there.

While the holidays have come and gone, it still doesn’t seem like winter because we haven’t had a significant snowfall yet. We’ve had cold temperatures. We’ve had wind howling. We’ve had ice coating the roads.

Yet there hasn’t been enough snow this season to make the kids gleeful when they wake up in the morning, knowing there is a chance for a late start or to get a snow day.

With this lack of precipitation, I have made the intentional decision not to do something - take down my outdoor Christmas lights. The indoor decorations have been returned to their totes and placed in the basement. But my outdoor holiday lights remain on my pine trees. Colorful strings still adorn my roofline. And red-and-white candy canes are hanging on my building on Norris. By this point, I had anticipated flipping the candy canes so they could make a heart for Valentine’s Day, but I am still holding onto hope that snow will adorn the decorations for their intended visual appeal.

Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I think I have seen more holiday lights up and still on than usual. We are in the midst of the dull, gray part of the long winter season, where the grass is dormant, the trees are leafless and the only color on the horizon is brown after brown after brown.

So, without the snow to provide a clean, bright surface, the lights provide a glimmer of color and a bit of brightness in this somewhat drab time of year.

And who is to say when lights should come down anyway? Think about the touristy places you have visited, such as ski resorts or theme parks. They have lights up nearly year-round because it simply provides beauty and whimsy to the location.

Just because the holiday has passed, does it mean that we have to return to a colorless world until grass starts to grow and the flowers start to bloom?

I realize that leaving the lights up continuously reduces their impact. After all, there is something about seeing the holiday lights for the first time each winter, but for now, we need that joy and color and brightness that the holiday lights bring.

There is something about the addition of lights that can transform a space or location into a magical, welcoming atmosphere.

Consider Norris Alley next to the Keystone as you drive down Norris. The former parking lot was transformed with cement and trees, but it is the lights in the evening that draw your eyes to the space.

For nearly two years, we waited for the marquee at the Fox Theater to be completed. Now every time it is up, Norris Avenue just shines - literally and figuratively - a bit brighter.

And there may be even more lights on Norris Avenue. Beautify McCook coordinates the lights on top of the buildings downtown, which are lit up during the holidays.

But they are researching replacing those lights with new technology, which would allow the buildings to be lit up throughout the year, perhaps for homecoming, Heritage Days, or the Fourth of July.

While it will be great when we finally do get snow, we can lift our spirits by enjoying the lights that surround us, at least until that snow comes…in March or April.