For most families this time of year there are traditions. Some light menorahs or kinaras. Some decorate trees.

Some watch Rankin and Bass specials on TV. Some spin dreidels.

As a child growing up in a home without television, mine was taking a drive around town to see the Christmas lights.

It seems almost quaint in this day of streaming video on iPads and video chatting on phones you can carry in your pocket.

Did people really just pile into the family station wagon to drive around town and look at…pretty lights? No screens? No interaction? Nothing but…lights?

It's a habit that fell by the wayside as years passed, one I've realized only this year that I never picked up with my own child.

I was too busy creating new traditions with my family — traditions of cookie baking, and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, of Christmas Eve pajamas and of pretending to have forgotten to buy said pajamas. Raising a kid in our electronic world, something as simple as a drive around town to ooh and ahh at a bunch of colorful bulbs seemed almost too simple for a modern child.

But nothing is traditional this December, not with gatherings canceled, Santa huddled at home to protect his lungs, holiday concerts via Zoom, and the whole world living 6 feet apart.

This year the simple is what I long for, if only for the chance to be normal for a few moments.

It seems I'm not alone. The light displays seem bigger this year and there seem to be more of them. Is it that people have been home more and just had nothing else to do, so they figured they might as well throw up some lights? Or are people just so eager for a little cheer that they figured something pretty and bright was well worth the hassle of all that untangling and hanging?

Whatever the reason, I'm sending a simple thank you for this simple, normal gift of tradition from families around the neighborhood to my own.