Lights shining in the darkness …

So many of us become so much more cynical with age, or maybe we just notice all the bad stuff more as grownups.

A lot of it has to do with the times we live in, of course. This electronic age where all the news is in our face or at our fingertips in seconds, the world’s tragedies and horrors no longer limited to a few pictures in a newspaper you can put away.

And this hectic, often scary world makes it harder each passing year to get into the holiday spirit, fueled by the sorrow of others making you feel sad with them, if not simply guilty for being happy or sharing joy.

As I’ve aged, that sympathetic part of me is what has propelled me into all the civic involvement I’ve had most of my adult life.

I can’t walk past an ‘angel tree’ without picking an ornament, can’t pass a Salvation Army red kettle without finding something to stuff into the slot.

I have a brother who can still assume the character of an eight-year-old at Christmas, putting up decorations as soon as he can, stringing lights on everything but the neighborhood cat (though I think he may have done that a time or two).

I definitely envy that Yuletide zeal (he’s pretty much the same for Halloween and any occasion where you decorate something).

Fortunately there are a number of people and places who do everything they can to bring the kid out in all of us.

One such place locally is the tiny textile mill town of McAdenville, that has adopted the name ‘Christmas Town USA’ over the past decades.

McAdenville’s residents, numbering less than a thousand, string red, green and white lights all over the place, creating a glowing epicenter of holiday joy that pilots say they can see from 30,000 feet.

The yuletide spectacle draws the curious and eager from literally hundreds of miles away to stroll or drive its streets just off Interstate 85 south of Charlotte.

The dominant employer, Pharr Yarn Company, boosted the tradition a half-century ago when it started paying the whole town’s light bill, thus inspiring townsfolk to go crazy with their displays.

They threw the switch this week and the lights will glow nightly through December 26, but be warned – traffic lines up just before dusk and it’s pretty much bumper-to-bumper until they turn ‘em off at 9:30 p.m. on weeknights, 11 p.m. on weekends.

But if you want that child in you to come out for the holidays, there’s probably no better place to go.

The idea of pop-up Christmas villages has actually spread to other locations hereabouts, including ‘villages’ in, oh, Rock Hill, Fort Mill and Belmont, to name a few.

There are even lovingly-crafted sites and displays in the ravaged Carolina mountains, where volunteers and locals from Chimney Rock to Swannanoa have done their best to try to revive the spirit of the season with their own craft fairs and such and are welcoming visitors over repaired roadways as best as they can.

And, of course, scores of local individuals have established glowing traditions of their own.

The annual ‘Santa stop’ on Sherwood Forest Drive off Colony Road comes to mind, and a good many local neighborhoods have their own illumination competitions, like Hillside Drive off Selwyn Avenue and plenty more seasonal villages just about anywhere around town.

So despite all the daily bad news, the lights of Christmas shrine through the darkness hereabouts, and it’s a glow that will warm your heart if you let it.

Get out and about when and where you can, and I guarantee it will bring a smile to your face.

Merry Christmas, y’all.