Take a Walk to See the Lights

One of our Advent activities this week was to take a walk to see the lights in the neighborhood.  We ate supper a little bit early, bundled up, and made a pretty big loop to check out all the decorations.  The girls had fun oohing and ahhing at sparkling shrubbery, Christmas trees in windows, and deer grazing in lawns.

Equally as enthralling to them, though, were our shadows as we walked under streetlights, and the moon and stars in the sky above.

I was reminded how seldom the girls are outside after dark.

During the summer, it gets dark long after the girls go to bed.  During the late fall and winter, when it gets dark much earlier, it’s usually cooler and we spend our outside time in the mornings and afternoons.

We love to eat out on the weekends, but it’s most often a Saturday lunch.  And on the rare occasions when we eat out for dinner, we load and unload in the garage.

“Mommy!  Is that a star???”

“Mommy, I love the stars!  I want to pull one down!  Can I???”

It’s something I definitely take for granted…obviously being out at night as an adult, and having grown up “in the country”, having an unadulterated view of the night sky at my disposal.

And then there were our shadows, ever changing as we walked under streetlights.

“Look!  Our shadow is behind us!”

“Here it comes…it’s beside us!”

“Wow…look how tall my shadow is, Mommy!  I’m growing!”

And the girls erupted in fits of giggles every time I shrieked “OUCH!” when one of them stepped on my shadow.

Of course we see our shadows in the summer sunshine, but what a fun lesson in physics it was to talk about the angle of the light and how shadows are created.

It was a fun night for all of us, and a downright magical one for me.  Not only did I get to enjoy my babies’ wonderment at the pretty decorations…not only did I relish the four of us, bundled up tight and walking hand in hand…but I was reminded of the beauty of discovery.

Oh, and it's okay to bend the rules every once in a while...an earlier supper and a later bedtime were well worth the experience.

A merry Christmas to me, indeed.