More: The Vanishing of Scale in an Over-the-Top Nation

Introduction

1 iNTroducTioN The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. —Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis1 — on roughly the same day every November during the 1960s and 1970s, our neighbor from across the street, Mrs. Zipse, put up her Christmas lights. The configuration was simple: a single strand of large GE outdoor bulbs in assorted colors intertwined with a strand of garland and positioned so they outlined the cupola-shaped outer front door of the three-bedroom house she shared with her five children. Mrs. Zipse was unfailingly kind to me, my brother, and the other kids in our suburban neighborhood in northern New Jersey . Her Halloween candy was first-rate, and on many occasions over the years she invited us in for snacks, even though we were all much younger than her kids. Mrs. Zipse had a bubbly, vibrant personality that was, I happily discovered when I saw her years later at a local restaurant, undimmed by advancing age. She would often take part in our pick-up games, grabbing a glove or bat, or a hockey stick. I can easily imagine her smiling face, framed by a pair of kitty-kat glasses hanging from a silver chain. She had a warm, boisterous laugh. For you boomers out there, think of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In cast member JoAnne Worley or “Josephine the Plumber” of Comet TV ad fame, with a dash of Alice from The Brady Bunch thrown in. 2 — More — Nearly each November until I went away to college, I would watch Mrs. Zipse put up the Christmas lights. Her kids, one of whom, Bobby, was my hero growing up because of his athletic prowess , my almost complete lack of same, and his unstinting willingness to teach me how to play various sports without injuring myself or others, would sometimes help her, but in most years, it was a solo pursuit. On many nights during the holiday season, I would spend large chunks of time in my bedroom, located in the front of our house, lying on my bed, chin on the windowsill, and simply watch the lights. They joyfully augmented falling snow and suggested a wintry wind on unseasonably warm days. Their installation marked the beginning of the Christmas season, at least for me. Besides watching Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on television with my mom and brother—with the lights off, porcelain Christmas trees lit, and cups of hot chocolate warming our hands—peering out at Mrs. Zipse’s lights was my most significant holiday ritual. One of the highlights of my holiday trips home from Temple University was confirming the lights were again up. They would be the first thing I would look for as I finished the last stage of my journey home from the bus stop, a turn around the corner from Oakland Road onto Kensington Terrace, the Maplewood, New Jersey, street on which I was raised. I’d check to see the lights were there and then wonder if my parents and brother were home. I would later reenact the windowsill ritual, a fact kept until now from my worldly college friends. Although she died long before the movie came out, I recently wondered what Mrs. Zipse would think of Deck the Halls, the 2006 movie starring Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito as neighbors who labor extensively to create the most intricate, garish, kilowattconsuming Christmas light display in their area. Broderick plays Dr. Steven Finch, known in the fictional town of Cloverdale as “Mr. Christmas.” Finch’s excessively planned devotion to holiday revelry has consumed him; he has, for example, grown the next five years worth of Christmas trees in his yard. Soon, car salesman Buddy Hall (played by DeVito) and his family move in across the street; Hall, told by his twin daughters that their new home is not visible on an Internet global mapping site, expresses his hope that “one day I’d do something big.” Soon, Hall and Finch are caught up in a heated competition to create the most impactful Christmas display. — iNTroducTioN — 3 It’s not that wanting to swallow up the night sky and to have their home displays “seen from space” are destructive goals (the film’s trailer refers to the contretemps as “the Battle of the Bulbs”), although the home of Broderick’s character and...