Nostalgia: noun

“A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.” (Courtesy of dictionary.com)

I don’t have many things that I’m nostalgic about, and even those few usually only count seasonally. For example, Christmas lights; I don’t get nostalgic for them in summer.

The problem with nostalgia is that we’re often looking back through rose colored glasses. In reality putting up lights in my youth often involved long hours of being ordered around, yelled at, and getting multiple scrapes and bruises (only to then repeat the process in 3-4 weeks). This experience, IN REALITY, was not fun. Therefore, I tended to only truly like them on other houses. My nostalgia is more related to car rides through the neighborhood then. Regardless, I still love looking at Christmas lights as an adult.

Maybe we need to redefine the word to mean “a wistful desire to return an “idealized” version of a thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the “overly glorified or exaggerated” happiness of a former place or time.”

Regardless, I have some lights to enjoy.