Harbor Springs — We can’t make the sun shine if it doesn’t want to shine. We can’t make summer come early. We can’t build mountains, and we can’t dig great lakes. But we can build homes and shops, streets and sidewalks. And then we can beautify them.
We do this all year long. Planting flowers, rearranging furniture, hanging curtains, laying rugs, and covering walls in fresh paint. And around Christmas, we do seasonal beautification.
On the darkest days and longest nights, we long for light. But not the neon lights of Las Vegas or the dull shine of the inflatable blow-ups that look like something you might see blowing in the wind outside a used car dealership. No. We long for decorations that invite us in and remind us that there is still light among unforgiving darkness.
When the sun sets before 5 p.m., we love the glowing light that reminds us of the fires we used to keep or a glimpse of the summer sun through the trees. This is what these beautiful decorations do. They give us the thing we hope for.
Even in our world of ultra-consumerism, we are still drawn toward classic beauty. Toward scenes that feel like they were here before us, because they were. We love places that feel like they could be found in some classic film. No one really wants to crawl into a scene of neon green inflatables and laser lights rotating on the side of a garage. So why do we decorate the world this way?
Why not make our world one that we would want to read about?
Christmastime in Harbor Springs is that world. This is one of those towns that looks like it was dreamed up by Norman Rockwell, both in summer and winter. Walking through town in the middle of December feels like stumbling into some old film from the golden era, some setting from an old book, or a family photo album hidden away in the attic.
Long garland hangs from white fences and wraps around tall wooden pillars on front porches. Strings of soft lights sit simply on top of short green shrubs under front windows. Heavy snow turns golden. Traditional wreaths adorned with red bows hang on dark, quiet doorways. A Christmas tree with small colored lights on the front porch, white lights and pine hang on the railing. A lamp on in the living room. Warm light seeps out into the cold, northern Michigan night. The street is quiet.
There is a great, tall Christmas tree standing in the middle of the road at the center of town. The street isn’t closed. Cars just drive slowly around the great pine. You come so close to the branches you could reach your hand out the window and grab hold if you wanted. They’ve done this for over a century. It’s something that could only exist in a small town where everyone knows one another, and where there’s no traffic or stoplight.
There are homemade ornaments hung on the big branches. Names of children written in marker on the back. Colored lights run all the way up to a yellow star hung on top. The Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church sits a block away.
The truth about the beautiful and timeless decorations that make Harbor Springs feel like a glimpse into a more beautiful past is that none of them are particularly pricey. Wreaths, garlands, and warm lights are not expensive. Classic decorations are cheaper than some giant blow-up figure bobbing around in the front yard.
In the end, it comes down to taste, not money. The classic and the timeless is what we all, deep down, want for in our world. It might be what we need now more than ever.
We get to choose. Why not choose the beautiful?
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan and host of the Pleasant Peninsula Podcast. Follow him on X @NecktieSalvage.
