I live in a picturesque little New England town with a historically-preserved (for the most part) downtown. Every year the trees lining Main Street are festooned with white lights that are lit during the long winter nights. It makes the place look even more charming, and it classes up the joint, distracting the eye from the glowing plastic Bank of America signs and such. This year, however, Miss Killjoy the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce says that it's too expensive, costing about $15k a year for labor alone. No, she'd rather have "lighted banners" hanging from the old lampposts. Those lampposts already have chamber-created banners hanging from them, tacky buggers that say the name of the town and "Walk into something wonderful!", a slogan that makes me picture a Connecticut tourist walking right into a parking meter. I shudder to think what "holiday" banners this team would come up with. I normally don't concern myself with what the chamber does, but the lit-up trees help me make it through the winters. Even if it's miserable out, say it's cold and sleeting and there's no snow, the trees look all pretty and warm glowing in the fog. And they want to keep the branches bare and gray. Also working against me? The town's Tree Committee, which wants to outright BAN strands of lights on the trees downtown, because they supposedly hurt the trees. Come ON people, these are little strings of lights, they aren't made of barbed wire, and they aren't dripping battery acid or something. Those people up there in City Hall are fucking it up for the people that's in the streets.