William H. “Skip” Boyer, KCCH

Sometimes holiday lights overcome the joy and significance of the season.

In Freemasonry, we understand the fundamental search for Light, which is the heart of each member’s progression through the Degrees as we seek more Light in Freemasonry. Appropriately, imagery of Light is very important in every extension of the Craft and beyond. For me, personally, the important relationship between light and the winter holiday season was one of the first things I discovered in the early days of my life.

My family has been marrying and burying from the sanctuary of Omaha’s Clifton Hill Presbyterian Church for nearly 150 years. At about age five, I auditioned for a part in the church’s Sunday School Christmas play. I was cast as a Roman soldier. It was a non-speaking part that required me to stand there with my tin-foil-accented spear and look mean. I did it so well that I was asked to reprise the role in the Easter pageant the following year. I even considered a career in the ministry. Briefly.

But I digress.

The Christmas play was, of course, the retelling of the birth of Christ in the stable. At the center of the set was a small wooden manger filled with straw and a tiny white blanket. The role of the Baby Jesus was played to perfection by a carefully concealed 75-watt light bulb.

Ever since that event, I’ve known there was a direct relationship between electric lights and how we celebrate the joy of the holiday season, but sometimes I think the lights overcome the joy and significance of the season.

This was strongly reinforced last night as I watched the television news. They featured local homes with their lighting displays. The particular home featured last night had enough lights to illuminate most Third World countries. And that was just on the outside. On the inside, every room was festooned with lights, electric trains, Christmas villages, tacky statuettes of small elves, and more. Much more.

Outside, plywood cutouts representing several fairy tales (although exactly what Little Red Riding Hood has to do with Christmas escapes me at the moment), fake snowmen (in desert Phoenix no less), an old Ford pickup wound with hundreds of twinkle lights (it never looked so good), and more. Much more. The house, inside and out, was enough to bring tears of uncontrolled joy to the eyes of utility officials.

Cars filled with awestruck children and rubbernecking adults filled the street stretching in lines as far as the eye could see, blocking driveways, and jamming the street tighter that Scrooge’s heart on Christmas Eve. Small groups of neighbors were standing around, obviously taking great joy from the whole event and gesturing toward the owner of this display of high tech who was being interviewed on television. I don’t remember everything he said, but it was something to the effect that he knew Jesus was glad he had done this. Personally, I’m not so sure. I mean, in my youth, Jesus appeared to be satisfied with a 75-watt bulb. I know I sound like Scrooge. Bah! Humbug!

Not so.

I actually put up lights outside our home, and I have a miniature Christmas village that I’ve been constructing for my family for years. It has about 30 little buildings in it now. I add to it every year. This year, I added a Masonic Lodge.

Outside our home, I have several strands of elegant, tasteful, white lights that I string around the eaves. My lights are something of a neighborhood tradition. Every year, I stand in the front yard and untangle the light strands, punctuating my work with carefully chosen seasonal words and phrases. The neighbors, on the other hand, gather their small children and encourage them to go indoors until I’m finished.

I’ve thought about not doing the electric light thing. The Southwestern alternative doesn’t really appeal to me, however. You’ve seen it: people lining up brown paper lunch bags on their sidewalks, each with a candle held in place by sand. Even the occasional fire, when the candle slips too close to the paper bag, does not put off these determined individuals.

Somehow, I think it may be time to return to my childhood roots. That 75-watt bulb makes a lot of sense, especially since we also had a firm hold during my youth on the true meaning of the holiday season—its celebration, as in Masonry, of hope for world peace and goodwill toward all men.

William Herbert “Skip” Boyer is the executive producer and senior writer for Best Western International, a fifth-generation Mason, Past Master of Paradise Valley Silver Trowel Lodge #29, Phoenix, and a member of the Scottish Rite Bodies of Phoenix. Contacts: 15817 N. 6th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85022; Skip.Boyer@bestwestern.com