By Kate Stockrahm
If it were up to me, our holiday lights would be down already.
Maybe that makes me sound like old Ebenezer (before the ghosts), but so be it.
We’re just two days into January as I write this, and all I want to do as I look out onto our snow-dusted porch – gently glittering under the red, green, yellow, blue, and purple bulbs of the lights we so painstakingly strung up in single-digit temperatures last month – is shove them into a plastic storage tub in the basement and forget about them until next December.
Which, I know, makes it seem like I shout “bah humbug!” into the brisk night air as carolers go by and children whisper Christmas wishes into a shopping-mall Santa’s awaiting ear.
But I don’t do that.
I actually love the holiday season. I love the way we all slow down a bit between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, regardless of what holiday (if any) we celebrate in our homes. I love seeing which of my neighbors go all out with their yard decor (think: inflatables, arches, candy canes, light shows with musical accompaniment) and which keep it subtle with crisp white lights and a wreath. I love baking dozens of cookies with my mom (whose powder-blue stand mixer sits idle from January to November otherwise) and coating our years-worn paper recipes in another layer of flour and buttery fingerprints as we work. I love going
to the store to pick out a fresh roll of wrapping paper and complementary ribbons that will make sense for next year’s birthday gifts, too. I love laughing with my friends – all dressed up in sequins and velvet and feathers – as we share our resolutions, bowls of salty snacks, and cheap champagne around a dining room table at 2 a.m.
I love it all.
But now it’s no longer “the holidays,” right? It’s just winter. In Michigan. Which means it will be pretty gray (both sky and snow) and pretty cold (both outside and in my bones) for another three to four months.
So yeah, bah humbug.
As of Jan. 2, the lights on our porch represent something delightful that’s behind me now, and they shouldn’t be allowed to shine happily while I languish in the return to real life and the dread of responsibilities to come. Instead of festive, cheery decor, those bulbs have become glowing reminders that I need to “get back to it” on Monday – “it” being decidedly less joyful and certainly devoid of twinkling lights and trays of holiday cookies.
But then my partner, who is forever the optimist of the two of us, says something wildly sweet and encouraging about how “we are responsible for our own happiness.”
He suggests that rather than viewing those multi-colored lights adorning our porch as a spectre of holidays past, I’m allowed to view them as a reminder of the joy we made and can continue to make even after those holidays are over.
In summary, he tells me, as if it was always obvious and easy: “We can just leave the lights up if they make the world feel less gray and cold.”
He says it in a way that’s sincere (and therefore incredibly annoying to me as a cynic), because even in my post-holiday melancholy I know that he’s right.
So, we’ll be leaving our lights up for another few weeks – those happy cruel, wonderful reminders of past and future joy.
Maybe we’ll even leave them up the whole month of January. Who knows? Who cares? Because I love the holidays, after all, and I do hope to carry some of their magic with me into 2026.
Happy New Year, Flint.
Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in East Village Magazine’s January 2026 print edition. Stockrahm confirmed that as of this posting, her holiday lights remain up on her front porch.
