More Interesting Than a Holiday Inflatable

Regards for Thanksgiving. I'll be posting again near the end of November, at least to comment on the beginning of meteorological winter, which is December 1. That day is also the feast of St. Eligius, patron of coin collecting and numismatics, among many other metal-related activities.

One of the houses on our block has hung a net a lights from their roof of their two-story house down nearly to the ground. This is the first time they've ever done so, though they aren't new to the house. It is a tricolor flag. France? No, the stripes are horizontal. Russia? No, the colors are red, blue and white, from top to bottom, rather than white, blue and red. It's the simplified Serbian national flag.

I don't know these neighbors, but there's no reason they can't be Serbs. This is metro Chicago, after all. But I wonder whether they celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar, or go along with the Gregorian, or have two Christmases. In case any, they're American in the sense that they've decorated early. And nothing says Merry Christmas like the Serbian flag.