Out of the mouths of babes: Bring on the light

My four-year-old niece asked Santa Claus for lights this year. “For the bushes.” And so when the family car pulled up to their house after Christmas Eve dinner the shrubbery was all a-glow. And so was she.

You know we’re in trouble when even the wee ones way up here on the 49th parallel are wishing for light.

Last week in this space I was hankering for some heat that could help beat our petroleum dependency but really, we are not struggling with a scarcity of heat energy. Now light, on the other hand…. It’s a rare sight at this time of year for anyone who works a nine-to-five. In fact, I don’t know anyone who is a-okay with carrying on their daily lives in half the daylight hours of the peak of summer. Going from 16-plus hours to just eight and a few precious minutes feels almost extreme, and during the especially dank, mouldering days, sometimes a test of our collective sanity.

And so I devote the rest of this space to some much-needed light and colour, by focusing on reflections of the brass horns during a cheery performance by TubaChristmas at Robson Square, and by sweeping the camera through the hotel lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel’s annual Festival of Trees.