Pretty Lights

I was unloading the dishwasher the other night and Nicco was "helping." He pointed out the window and said "Pretty lights." That usually means there are Christmas lights or some other sort of outdoor decorative lights. He also usually follows his "pretty lights" statement by reminding us that "Santa Claus is lying down until next year, getting rest for the big night." I didn't see any pretty lights, but he insisted. I looked out and saw the crescent moon and I thought Venus was a porch light or something, it was so big and bright. (Perhaps I should have paid more attention in what, 3rd grade science in the space unit? It was probably earlier than that when someone explained the difference between stars and porch lights. In my defense, the moon and Venus were low on the horizon, easily level with porch lights. Or maybe I should have just looked longer than half a second. Or maybe given the omission of the Santa Claus explanation, I should have known that something unique was happening.) Anyway, about a half hour later, the news anchor on T.V. was talking about the awesome pairing of the moon and Venus. It wasn't really visible by the time I checked again, but they said it would be similar the next night. I looked, Venus was indeed impressive, but not as much as the previous night, apparently. I should have listened to Nicco!