Some houses have candles in their windows. Others, tasteful white twinkle lights around trees limbs and branches. There are spotlit doors with wreaths. And there are icicle lights, easiest to install if you have a slight overhang, which we do not.

A few years ago people started putting not just one large wreath on the front door, but smaller wreaths on every front-facing window, a holiday-decorating escalation that seems like it would be overkill but can look surprisingly nice when glimpsed from afar.

The house behind us drips in icicle lights and spotlit trees, and the house behind that features a snowman and reindeer and strings of lights shining from tree to tree, giving the place a fiesta feel.

Our own house has colored lights along the roof line, around the door, across the shrubbery and up the lamp post. The window candles are missing in action but should be up soon.

We are, in short, decked out for the season. At least we are until I plug in my hair dryer and blow the fuses (which has been happening far too often lately). But except for these black-outs, our house and the others in Folkstone have become what we need most right now: candles in the darkness.  

Photo of Bull Run Lights Festival: Virginia.org