I remember the first year my hometown suddenly decided not to string the lights back and forth across mainstreet or broadcast Christmas music to the shoppers/revelers. Let's see, I was 10 so it was 1975. I was heart broken. I was agnostic then, I'm atheist now. I'm still heartbroken. I know why it stopped - same reason they tore down the oldest building in town just a few years ago - practicality and $$. No one felt like making an effort any more. Friggin sucks. Also, the area's been in droubt for about 15 years so it rarely looks like the Christmas' I had when I was a kid; we used to build full size igloo's in the front yard. Yep. Sucks. I remember lying under the tree staring up at the reflections from those giant colored lights on the wood ceiling. One time, I looked out and there were deer in the yard. Once we had a moose in town but I never saw it. But when my Dad grew up in the same town, he used to listen to the wolves howl on clear, cold, Christmas nights. Things change. All of that is gone. Who DID steal Christmas?