Christmas in York has lost a bit of its sparkle. Residents of Twin Pike Way have decided they won’t be putting on their traditional light display this year. The cul-de-sac started its display to mark the millennium and has raised more than £100,000 for charity, donated by people who came to admire the multicoloured extravaganza.
Now, though, the residents are carefully coiling up their LEDs and deflating their penguins. “Most of us are pensioners now, and it’s also due to other problems including electricity charges … and the cost of replacing decorations,” Alan and Pamela Reed told the York Press.
I am a career Scrooge and general joy vacuum, who, when living in the centre of York, stuck my head out of the window, “You boy, what day is this?”-style, to complain to the council operatives erecting Christmas lights on my house. (It was October! They were really wonky!) I should be quietly satisfied by this news, but despite never visiting “Twinkle Way”, as it was renamed for the season, I am not.
Since I moved to the dark, quiet suburbs in the depths of the pandemic, my attitude to Christmas lights has shifted. As night falls shortly after lunch in December, I start looking forward to going out in the wet and the dark to admire my neighbours’ displays. Lots of people go all in: multiple strands, flashing sequences, projectors with revolving reindeer, outside, in, upstairs and down; there are a few houses that would put Jean‑Michel Jarre to shame. Going round the block to take in the show becomes a small nightly pleasure.
I worry a bit about wildlife – I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t – but the most dramatic displays aren’t left on all night and there is still a refuge for confused creatures in the Stygian muddy gloom of our garden. Mainly, I feel grateful people can be bothered: it feels like an act of generosity, especially at a time when not everyone has the means to celebrate. Then there is always a particular magic about light in the darkness and, goodness knows, there is plenty of darkness.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
