Helen, what was your most memorable Christmas ever?” I asked my 86-year-old mother-in-law. Without hesitation, she replied, “When we lived in the chicken coop.” When Helen was 5 or 6 years old, ...

Dave Ceasar’s Christmas lights obsessions started slowly, with a larger-than-life inflatable snowman and a few strings of lights in the trees outside his Litchfield home. “We had that ...