I’m one of the least domestic people you will ever meet … Which is strange, because when I think of “happy” lighting, I get imprints from my childhood of Christmas Eve night — with the tree lit up, a fire burning in the fireplace, and maybe the glow of a ’90s television playing The Santa Clause or Charlie Brown’s Christmas. I feel safe, carefree, hopeful for the presents to come the next day, and all the delicious food that my aunts and uncles would inevitably bring over the next day. Before I became painfully conscious of Christmas “materialism” that Charlie Brown so hated, or of the tensions in my family between this and that relative. I had not yet experienced loss or guilt. All I cared about in that moment was the warm glow of the fire and the Christmas lights, and how this lighting made our shag carpet warmer and cooshier than it would be on any other night.
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