A Christmas grump

[redbird]

It's not that I dislike Christmas: go visit your family, give each other gifts, eat a festive meal, sing carols, any of that.

I can even deal with the way so much shopping for gifts, electronics, clothing, and so on is loaded into one month of the year as to make it difficult for someone who suddenly realizes she needs, say, a winter coat. (Mail order and the Web help a lot.)

What I can't handle are the blinking lights.

Most of the year, my problem with blinking lights, strobes, fast cuts, and so on is a problem in specific known locations. So I don't go to casinos (not a big sacrifice) or some dances and clubs, and I only go to movies if I'm with someone who doesn't mind telling me when it's safe to uncover my eyes after a bad scene (including almost all trailers).

Right now, a random Italian restaurant is risky. Right now, walking through the lobby of the building I live in is annoying, because the people who have decorated it for Christmas decided to use blinking lights. Right now, even some stores that aren't over-crowded with people shopping for presents are a pain.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

What a gigantic pain! I am so sorry. Blinking lights are ubiquitous from now until January. An endurance test.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

The blinking lights.

I never thought about that.

You're right ... it's a real pain. Worst is the way one will be taken as a grinch for complaining about it.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

You could come to my house. (-:

The only lights I use, inside or out, are tiny white ones that burn steadily with no blinking.

In fact, I need to put them up today ...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The people opposite us, who last year had lights, this year have blinking lights. This means I have to shut the blinds in the long room the minute they switch them on. I find this very annoying.

Re: A Christmas grump

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i am sorry you're so sensitive to them; that goes way beyond my annoyance with them. :/ i don't like blinking lights because they DEMAND attention from my visual cortex. decoration should not demand attention, it should just sit pretty. :) i have nice, quiet, non-blinking miniature lights, which is part of what i like about this season.

actually, if you don't want to talk with the building super about it, you could do some clandestine surgery on the blinkies in your lobby. almost all light sets i know can be set to blinking or steady, and it's either an electronic controller (for more expensive lights, where one can set a blinking pattern), or a special blinker bulb (it uses a bimetal strip) at the start of the line that determines this. flip the switch, or replace that bulb with a regular one and voilà -- no more blinking pain. replacement bulbs can usually be bought cheaply in small packs.

Re: A Christmas grump

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful idea! Thank you for suggesting this. Flashing lights give me migraines, and on bad days (which includes pretty much all of the last few years of chronic daily migraine) little blinky Christmas lights are enough to be a problem. It had been my custom to unplug them, where I could not avoid them, but switching them over to non-blinking is much more neighborly.