By Norman Knight
The two Christmas trees at our house are still up. We don’t feel embarrassed or guilty about it.
After all, electricians didn’t take down the lights on “The World’s Tallest Christmas Tree” until a just a few days ago. Of course, those volunteers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers had a valid reason — sub-zero temps, ice and snow — to delay the originally planned Jan. 6 project. But considering the festive aura the lights gave to downtown Indianapolis, my sense is no one minded much that the lights stayed put for an extra two weeks.
As it turns out, the weather also is a factor in why we haven’t taken our trees down. It is the reason the lights are still draped around them. We removed all of the Christmas-themed and Santa ornaments but left the shiny ones. Our light-strung trees are still up not so much because of the cold and snow — our trees are indoors — but because the long January darkness seems to us to demand light. Our need for more light is probably a combination of short daylight hours coupled with the dreariness of days-on-end overcast skies. When we turn on the tree lights the room and the day literally and figuratively seem to brighten.
It has been long established that changes in seasons can affect some people, making them sad, depressed and irritable. Experts are not clear what causes seasonal affective disorder (appropriately abbreviated SAD) but agree it is likely caused by lack of sunlight. This lack may affect the biological clocks that control our sleep patterns. It also may be that serotonin, a brain chemical that affects mood, is impacted by changes in sunlight.
If there were a continuum plotting the severity of SAD-related symptoms, I think I would probably be on the weaker end of the spectrum. For me, these dark, dreary days are not so much clinically depressive as just something I must accept in the same way I accept a really long drive in a car across a boring interstate landscape. Gray winter days and long nights are something I must live with and get through. I think Becky would probably say something similar.
In my particular case, I also enjoy the extra light because it helps this set of old eyes I am working with. I am not sure Becky has this particular problem to the extent I do. As the day wanes and dusk approaches, Becky sits in what I consider near-darkness intently reading her book. I ask, “Are you sure you don’t need me to turn on a lamp?” She thanks me but, no, she’s good.
Meanwhile I am stubbing my toe on something on the floor that I might have seen with younger eyes. Shapeless forms in the dark stay shapeless a lot longer for me than they used to. I find the tree lights double as nightlights even in the daytime.
WebMD informs me that “subtle changes in our vision and eye structure take place as we grow older.” These changes include eye muscles that become weaker and are less able to control reaction to light and pupil size. This results in the pupils getting smaller and becoming less responsive. Oh, well. Just another thing I must accept.
I don’t know how much longer we are going to keep our trees up. The daylight hours do seem to be getting longer. It doesn’t stay as dark for as long in the mornings. Very subtle changes, kind of like my eye structure. Eventually, when the sun starts to linger, the trees and lights will come down. But then I’ll need to get some different nightlights.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
