We went driving to look at Christmas lights tonight; saw some amazing displays.
The thing I thought about, though, is that there are lots of different ways to decorate your house for Christmas.
- all white lights
- all colored lights
- animatronic reindeer
- inflatables
- flashing
- a simple Manger scene or crèche
And that’s to say nothing of tonight’s grand finale – a home in a subdivision who was broadcasting music and a full-property lighting display that was timed to the music.
There’s lots of ways to decorate, and yet when we’re rating Christmas lights, we’re comparing them to our own ideal of decorations. That’s natural, but that’s not necessarily what the owners’ intentions are.
The most perfect white light decorations will always fall flat if you only like homes with inflatable snowmen and flashing colored lights.
And vice versa.
It’s the same for music – if you only like music with adventurous harmony, then you’re going to criticize music with simple harmonic structures – even if those harmonic structures are exactly what the creators want out of their music.
Those differences of opinion are fine; but it’s important that in when we voice our opinions, we skew towards “it’s not for me” and away from “they did a bad job.”
They didn’t do a bad job decorating their home for Christmastime. They did it in the way they wanted to see it. “It’s not for me” isn’t the same as “It’s not good.”