holiday decorations

My walk back from work has recently been updated with some holiday festiveness. The trees around the reflection pool have been adorned with holiday lights, and the small street that I turn on right on before my dorm, has all the trees uniformly decorated. The trees that surround the reflecting pool had me thinking about public space during this season. It’s hard to argue that public space does not become more festive during the holidays. There is conscious and unanimous public effort toward beatification that occurs during this time. In fact, space in general becomes more habitable. It is fascinating that this phenomena occurs throughout the December month that suddenly encourages people to take charge of their habitat and make it more welcoming(the rare scrooge is excluded). I was also wondering who makes the decision or provides the means for the trees on this street to be decorated, because they are all on private property, yet decorated in an identical manner. The city could be responsible, but it is only on this street, making be suspect that private effort must be involved. In addition, most of the trees are on personal property.  I thought it was a great example of the privatization of the public space. Another interesting thought is if the Christmas decorations work to create an inner(the Christmas celebrating) circle and outer( non-Christmas celebrating) circle. Being raised Christian, but being more or less religiously neutral, I have never felt excluded from a community due to Christmas lights. I am good friends with several people of the Jewish faith, and while most of the time they are just happy to be in the holiday spirit, more than one public school sponsored “holiday party” or “holiday performance” has made them feel excluded. So the question then becomes, are the cheerful holiday decorations actually functioning as a gated community of Christmas-celebrators? Probably not. Nevertheless, it is an interesting American society bias to examine.