Ourdoor Christmas Decorations - how far do you go?

Tweet

Where I live and many other places too, there are neighborhoods where the entire heighborhood massively decorates the outside of their houses and the traffic and looky-lous drive through nightly to see the massive light display. Yes, it is nice, although this one near me is getting so populated, it is hard to drive through and there are so many people that it is so loud, it just takes alot away from the ambiance and enjoyment of why you are there. The are now selling hot chocolate, churizos, burittos and other food cart items.(then I read in the paper where some are complaining about the trash left behind.) But... Question: Few years back I read in the newspaper where they talked about this kind of thing, that most start the day after thanksgiving day and start putting up the lights and decoratios - many even animated and in motion. They said many men purposely schedule their weeks vacation from work for that week after to do this massive undertaking. Then what blew my mind, they said their electric bills were $400-$600 a month for December alone plus whatever for January and providing they did wait till end of November to do it, some do it earlier. That much just to have those lights? Who has that kind of money! Well, guess they do, but with the power shortages and Daylight Saving time to save energy and all the "save energy", seems that this is a waste of not only the energy but money. Everyone in debt but let's spend money on lights. I'm not a scrooge by far, but seems to me, they all could get alone just fine and holiday cheery with so much less and save money and electricity at the same time. What do you think?