It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

For 54 years, I spent all of my Christmas holiday in Napa.  Driving around to look at the lights was a particular highlight.  We didn't do lights, cause my mother was always believing that they would cause a fire. When my mother made up her mind, she didn't have time to be confused with the facts.
My father was a Jehovah's Witness, until he wasn't. Needless to say ,Christmas was not a big thing in our house. My mother attended St. John's Catholic School, though it was 'elementary school' when she attended in the 1920s and 1930's. They never fought about it, but my mother made it plain that he three boys were missing out on something because of my father's beliefs.  One year, she got up, called my uncle, who lived next door with their mother and told him to 'bring up the box.'  A few minutes later he came with a box that my mother had been hiding things from my father.  I got a red donkey stuffed toy, which doubled as a pajama bag for sleepovers. My father wasn't happy, but he didn't catch on fire either.
One of the highlights of our Christmas was driving around to look at the lights. The houses out near Foster Road, near Kay-Von Drive In, were always good.  One family put up an elaborate Nativity scene on Silverado Trail.
 (One year my brother and his wife, who lived in Vallejo, {he is deceased} put real candles on their tree mainly to, in his words, 'to piss off Ma.' She was nervous the entire time we were there, about three hours.)  Being late December, it was generally cold at Christmas.  If there were enough moisture in the air, it would get frosty and little boys love the frosty crunch under their feet.  I think it is in their genes. A number of Christmas Eves and Days were frosty.  When I was younger, we actually had a front lawn to have a lot of frost.  (It gave way to a sort of circular drive by the time I was about 14.)
We rarely got to go see Santa because of my father's beliefs. I got the unofficial word about Santa when I was about 8, but I still believe there is someone like Santa.
Napa was much like any small town USA.  I'm convinced that Norman Rockwell could have come to Napa and painted one of his famous small town pictures. 
'Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night 

Tom Ontis is a Napa ex-patriate now living in east Contra Costa County with wife Shelley, also from Napa and four darling and hilarious kitty cats: Daisy, Lucy, Cookie and Buster Bright Eyes III.