Holiday glow

We can't be sure there will be snow on Christmas from year to year, but no matter what the weather, light displays are perennial.

Drive through just about any Capital Region neighborhood — urban, suburban or rural — and you will see houses and shrubbery trimmed with strings of lights; jolly, internally lit inflatables; glowing, animatronic reindeer; and trees, wreaths and candy canes created with hundreds of lights.

Whether the holiday display is modest and rooted in religious tradition or it fills the yard, we really like lights. Most of the world's religions use lights to point toward the divine, said Victoria Brooks, the director of religious and spiritual life at Union College where she is also the Protestant minister.