Cheap evening activities around the block

Looking for something to do on one of the next few cold winter nights?

At least the ones that aren’t so cold they turn asphalt into a skating rink?

Here’s an idea that cheap dates have known about for ages. Really cheap dates.

Think of it as a Neighborhood Appreciation Session, of you prefer.

What you do is pile into your preferred vehicle, preferably the one in which the heater actually emits warm air. If you have a favorite CD or two of holiday music, punch them into the sound system. And a big thermos full of hot chocolate isn’t entirely out of line.

Got all that gathered?

Okay. Here’s the fun part.

Take the family, your sweetheart or just yourself and your faithful dog, and cruise the neighborhood.

Now the simple, inexpensive elegance of the plan is plain.

See, your friends and neighbors have been hard at work decorating their homes with everything from animatronic reindeer, lighted Santas climbing into chimneys and enough colored lights to make Las Vegas feel inferior. Well, maybe not that last one – Las Vegas never feels inferior when it comes to lights.

Your friends and neighbors have busily decorated their trees, their eaves, their porches, their lamp posts and their bushes. They’ve put up wreaths. They’ve created giant candy canes. They’ve illuminated snowflakes. Some have even added tableau to their front yards complete with blow-up cartoon characters.

Your friends and neighbors have created entire light sculptures in their front yards. If it grows, you can be sure someone has strung lights on it.

Your friends and neighbors have given you a chance to examine their psyche: You can contemplate the psychological reasons behind why some choose icicle lights that are all white to trim their homes and why others choose to use blue.

You can see which of your neighbors are traditionalists, the kind who simply string colored lights around their rain gutters, and who are faddists, the sort who jump all over the latest innovations for house decoration. You can see which of your friends and neighbors believe in Santa and which believe in a more religious meaning to their holiday season.

Your friends and neighbors have individually gone about putting some joy in to the holiday season. They’ve lighted the way toward the New Year and single-handedly buoyed the price of General Electric stock in the process.

More than that, they’ve given you a reason to drive around your own neighborhood and marvel at the spirit that fills our neighborhoods with joy and fun, good will and peace, wonder and laughter.

And isn’t that what the season is all about?