Let It Glow, Let It Glow, Let It Glow

Over the weekend, one of my daughters (I can't remember which; they blur together sometimes) whined, "Everybody else has their Christmas decorations up, and we don't."

Now, the "everybody else" gambit doesn't work with me. If you believe my daughters, "everybody else" buys their children Razr phones and ponies, and "everybody else" lets their kids stay up watching R-rated movies till 2 a.m. on school nights while quaffing Red Bull from solid silver goblets.

But I was sympathetic to her complaint. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and we only recently de-Halloweened our house. We'll get around to putting up some lights and a tree eventually, probably by Presidents' Day. Until then, we'll just have to satisfy ourselves by looking at other people's Christmas decorations.

Which is where you come in. Today, I'm announcing the first Washington Post Virtual Lights Show. What I want you to do is this: If the outside of your house is decorated in a particularly snazzy way, please send us a photo. We hope to run as many as we can in a rolling slide show starting Monday on washingtonpost.com.

There are some rules:

You must live at the residence. (No fair taking a picture of someone else's house.)

The residence must be in the Washington metropolitan area. (Sorry, Norwegian readers.)

The address should not be obvious in the photo. (Our attorneys tell us that we can't use photos of houses with identifiable locations.)

If you think you can abide by these edicts, snap away, then visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/lights to fill out the form to send your image to washingtonpost.com. Please send no more than one picture per house.

Children's Hospital

Decorations are going up at Children's Hospital, too. Does it stink to be a kid stuck in the hospital over the holidays? Yes, but if you have to be stuck, you might as well be stuck at Children's. It's one of the nation's leading pediatric medical centers.

Children's prides itself on another distinction: No child is turned away because his or her parents are poor. That this is possible is due in part to Washington Post readers, who have made generous donations to the hospital every winter for 60 years. This year, we have to raise $500,000 by Jan. 19. Your tax-deductible gift can help us get there.

To donate, make a check or money order payable to Children's Hospital and mail it to Washington Post Campaign, P.O. Box 17390, Baltimore, MD 21297-1390.