The fireflies fell in love with them.  The neighbors always, always looked up at them when they walked past, and sometimes they smiled.  Strangers in shining red cars slowed and stopped and honked merrily when they saw them.  The tinny repeating carols could drown out the ice cream siren, when she turned it on, and O Little Town on tin kazoo was a local favorite.

     She hung the lights in late March, when everyone else was taking them down.  She was a pious, dignified mother; she supposed this was her way of rebelling, her private revolution.  It was, to her dismay, socially acceptable.  Her house was always dark on Christmas Eve, and that was also sociably acceptable.  She quietly sighed for mavericks’ sufferings in the Age of Unconformity.

     Carol reverently observed Chanukkah.