The Christmas season is nearly upon us, and we almost have the opportunity to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every single year, there are certain “go to” family traditions that fill us with peace and joy, and signal to us that the Christmas season is nearly or already upon us. Some of these traditions are celebrated by all of us as Catholics, and other traditions are unique to our own backgrounds, families, or places where we live. Seemingly every parish and family puts out a creche. However, what makes life interesting are the things that your family or mine always did that we assumed everyone in the world did until we realized one day that just wasn’t the case. Whatever the tradition, when it was happening we all knew Christmas was right around the corner or that it was finally here.
Growing up in Michigan City, the sign that Christmas was almost upon us was jumping into my grandparents’ van and then driving to Washington Park to see what we called “the lights,” but after an online search while writing this article, I learned that it is officially called the “Festival of Lights.” No matter what you called it, the normal landscape of Washington Park in Michigan City near the lakefront was now transformed into a winter wonderland.
Filling the greenspace of the park, on the gazebo, and on every roof, now sat thousands of illuminated bulbs. While you might be thinking these are normal strands of lights strung up everywhere, this show was something quite different. Metal frames with internal lights are staked into the ground and various colors of bulbs depict all kinds of different objects, animals and scenes. Dinosaurs, elves, Santa’s sleigh, a 20-foot-tall lighthouse, and the band in the gazebo waving their instruments, were all depicted in strands and strands of lights.
Cars lined the small asphalt paths of Washington Park and coasted at two or three miles per hour with everyone pressed to the inside of their car windows looking at the transformed landscape. Since my childhood was prior to the common availability of cellphones, (the students at St. Teresa will think I am ancient) no one stopped to get out and take selfies or view the scenery through their camera phone, they just looked at the lights. While one would think the lights never change year after year, the best part was calling out the various animals and also what was in the lineup from last year and what was new this year. The classics that stand out in my memory were the T-rex, the jumping frog, or the police car that had a seemingly moving light atop the squad car. While we knew none of them actually moved, it was especially exciting to see the lights that strobed in regular intervals to depict movement and action.
As I grew older, I would no longer go in the back of my grandparents’ van, but I would take car rides with my own parents, then my friends from school, and finally the light show was all the better experienced with the freedom of being behind the wheel when I got my license. As I moved on from Michigan City High School and went to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) for college, part of winter break meant driving through the lights with old friends from high school.
As I entered seminary, I would do the same. Celebrating Christmas didn’t seem complete without driving through the lights near the beach. While there were many firsts in seeing the lights, a bittersweet first was when I, instead of my grandfather, drove since age and cancer took away his ability to drive. As one of those high school friends and my grandparents who I frequented the lights with have passed from this life, when I drive through every year I recall the moments we shared together enjoying the spectacle.
The Festival of Lights still goes on to this day, and I still take the annual pass through the lights as Christmas draws ever nearer. As a kid, the lights meant I would soon open presents. While I am reminded of that, what also comes to mind is the true meaning of Christmas: Jesus has come to rescue us from sin and death, and his birth is an earlier chapter in the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. Our salvation.
Father McDaniel is chaplain of the St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Student Center in Valparaiso.