Christmas, Christmas Lights and the Montauk Lighthouse

Three of four days a week I drive from East Patchogue to East Hampton. In the winter I use Route 27, in the summer not so much. During the Christmas season the evening drive back west is beautiful because of the plentiful lit up Christmas trees along the route in East Hampton Village, Bridgehampton, Water Mill, and, if I take a back way, to Hampton Bays and Southampton Village.

Each village is a Norman Rockwell painting, that breathes the breath of a countdown to another Christmas. As I age (63 now) Christmas season means so many different things, but mostly thoughts of my deceased parents, and my now very grown and far away children.

The East End decorates for Christmas perhaps as beautifully as anyplace on earth. They have been doing it since 1640, too. There are recorded documents of many early celebrations. In 2008-9 I covered the lighting of the Montauk Lighthouse for the now defunct Montauk Pioneer.

Living a few miles from the lighthouse at the time I watched the process of draping the Lighthouse with lights as I walked my beagle Bo along the bluffs of Camp Hero daily taking that famous winding trail to Turtle Cove just beneath the lighthouse.

What an amazing night it was the first time they put the lights on. Who can forget how bright and how overwhelming it was to see the Montauk Lighthouse transcend into another image than the usual maroon and white iconic tower.

Now the decision makers have decided that tradition will end due to budget costs. I know folks who work for the lighthouse and I know how much they love the place where they work. For so many Montauk locals and visitors the Montauk Lighthouse is a symbol of longevity and all things Montauk.

I must confess I have about five replicas in my house in various sizes and a large photo framed that I bought in 1979 hanging on the stairway to my bedroom. I am not sure why $50,000 was not easily funded to make the magic of that first night endure moving forward.

Why did they not raise the admittance price $1 to cover the cost ? Since I no longer live in Montauk it is not for me to say how to spend the limited monies needed these days. But it is sad to think that that proud moment when the lighthouse was first lit will become a clouded memory just like the last Christmas tree I had in my home.

As Joni Mitchell sang, "Don't it always seem to go . . . you don't know what you've got till it's gone!"

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