After a year of walking in darkness, Christmas lights are welcome: Albright

I don't know about you, but Christmas could not have come at a better time for me.

This holiday has always been a big deal in my family. From the day after Thanksgiving until into the new year, my parents' house is stuffed with garlands and snowmen and Santas.

There are glitter-crusted paper stars that hang from the ceiling by fishing wire. The branches of their Christmas trees sag with ornaments and memories.

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And there are lights, lots of lights — lights in the tree and lights in the bushes in the front yard, lights in garlands and lights in the little windows of the lovely ceramic train town my grandmother made.

The Getting Down of the Christmas Decorations from the attic is one of the most important Albright family traditions, and we've always done it the same way. My brother gets up in the attic, I get up on the ladder and we hand them down to my dad on the ground.

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That ladder is like a time machine to me. When I stand on it, I can see the house the way it used to look; I can remember when my legs were shorter and the boxes seemed heavier. I look at my dad standing there and I almost see the gray leave his hair and the care lines leave his face and he is smiling up at me like I am a little boy again.

This year, I found myself wishing that the ladder really was a time machine.

I wanted to go back to a year when everyone wasn't so obsessed with what new fight the president was having today — when we weren't constantly trying to find ways to hate each other. 

I wanted to go back to a time before some monster in Las Vegas slaughtered 50 people who were just trying to enjoy life at a concert. I wanted to go back to a world where every week didn't bring news that some other famous man had abused his power to sexually assault or harass women. 

But the ladder isn't a time machine, not really. At some point I have to step down back into the present.

When I do, at least I have Christmas lights.

Christmas lights are mostly thought of these days as just something fun, but I've always thought of them as something almost sacred. Lights are a powerful symbol of hope in my Christian faith tradition, as they are in most religions. 

The Bible story tells of a people in darkness, vanquished and oppressed. They put their hope in a covenant with God, whose prophet promised: "The people walking in darkness will see a great light." 

That's why the star that shines above Bethlehem is such a big deal. It is a great light that signals that hope, which had seemed so remote and impossible, was returning.

Do you ever feel like we're a people walking in darkness right now? Doesn't it feel like we could use a great light?

I'm not counting on a great star appearing over Washington or Dover. I guess I'll have to settle for the soft red-green glow of Christmas lights.

I know all the reasons why tribalism and polarized echo chambers are screwing up our politics, and I know there are few good reasons to think things will get better anytime soon.

I'm going to hang up a few lights and hope they will anyway.

I know how deep the divide is between Delaware leaders and the Wilmington community when it comes to education, and I know that the odds of any kind of compromise that will give desperately-needed help to those kids are slim.

I'm going to hope it happens anyway.

I know that there's little indication we're going to stop gun violence. I know that our reckoning on sexual assault is at real risk of running out of steam. I know global warming and refugee crises and famines are all continuing unrelenting, and the problems seem too big for anybody to solve them.

I'm going to hope we solve them anyway.

It is easy to think that we are a people walking in darkness. I'm going to hope that someday we see a great light.

For now, the star on top of the tree will have to do.

Merry Christmas.

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.