Let Your LOVE Lights Shine

Cold over most of the weekend, enough to keep the snow on the ground, but then we had an MLK Day warmup today with partial meltage. A random survey of suburban houses, also today -- that is, what I saw as I drove along -- revealed only one set of holiday lights still glowing, some small strings on a few bushes near the house.

But I also saw some Valentine’s lights. That was a first. Fairly modest by Christmas standards, but outdoor decorative lights all the same: white and pink, one heart-shaped, one Cupid, and one that spelled out LOVE. Are companies that specialize in holiday lighting are looking for the next market-expander?

Maybe in a few centuries, people will be astonished that no one lit up for Valentine’s Day before the mid-21st century. After all, marketing is sometimes astonishingly effective in inventing romantic notions (e.g., diamond engagement rings). Or it could be that the notion of romantic love as a basis for marriage will have been discarded, replaced by a psycho-genetic compatibility algorithm.