Today I have chosen to write about the history of Christmas lights in Salt Lake City. Basically, all you need to know are the following important dates.
July 24, 1847: Mormon pioneers enter the valley.
July 25, 1847: Pioneers make some plastic grapes, then start working on Temple Square.
1893: Pioneers finish Temple Square and start putting up Christmas lights.
1893-1973: Salt Lake City becomes known as a mecca for Christmas-light lovers.
1973: OPEC decides to ruin Christmas. Oil embargo enacted. "Energy Crisis" ensues. President Nixon makes everyone turn their thermostats down to 72 degrees and turn off their Christmas lights, after which he and Bob Haldeman sneak out of the White House and break into the Watergate Hotel.
A lot of people don't remember the Christmas of 1973. Especially people who were born after the Christmas of 1973. But I remember it vividly because of how dreary the Salt Lake Valley looked to those of us sitting with our little pompoms on the Provo High School drill-team bus as we rumbled north to watch our basketball team beat up on all the big-city sissy teams. We'd roll around the Point of the Mountain and see — nothing.
Just miles and miles of December darkness.
All that darkness made me sad, because my family used to love driving to Salt Lake City during December to check out the lights. The Sugar House merchant lights were the best. I liked the windows there, too — especially the old Southeast Furniture ones with the animated elves.
The residential lights were also fine. House lights then were big and fat and multi-colored — there were none of the tasteful, single-color strands you see today — and the oval globes glowed green and red and blue through snow like neon Easter eggs because in those days, it always, always snowed for Christmas.
Some homeowners, of course, took lighting to the next level. In addition to the strands framing windows and eaves, they put Santa sleighs and painted reindeers with light-bulb noses on their rooftops. Some folks were equal opportunity holiday employers, even back then. They rigged up Santas on the roof and life-sized shepherds in the front yard and then basked proudly in the resulting radioactive ecumenical glow.
And EVERY house on every street had lights.
Well, OK. Probably not every house. My grandparents didn't have lights on their house, for example. But the inside was cheery, what with my grandmother's poinsettias and Relief Society gold dip-n-drape wise men on the mantle. Not only that, but you could always count on good food there — even if it was something as simple as a Saturday night oyster stew garnished with melted butter, cracked pepper and saltine crackers.
Then came 1973. The year the Oil Grinch stole Christmas. And in that single year, decades of tradition disappeared in the valley with the simple downward flip of a switch. No more lights.
Like a lot of things in the '70s, however — pet rocks, mood rings, polyester leisure suits, Frye boots, gaucho pants, lava lamps, shag rugs, and President Nixon — the oil embargo came and went. But for some reason people didn't turn their lights back on. Who knows why? Maybe they thought they weren't supposed to. Or maybe they realized how much easier it is NOT to spend the Saturday after Thanksgiving putting them up. Whatever the reason, residential areas stayed dark for a long, long time. . . .
A recent drive through the valley, however, has left me heartened. More and more people are lighting up again. There's Glen Arbor Street and Whispering Pine Circle and hundreds of other homes (including Gov. Olene Walker's new chez on South Temple) that are doing their part to make the season bright.
And I just want to say thanks, you guys.
E-MAIL: acannon@desnews.com