Things change. I count on that every year when we go out looking for holiday lights. This year we
stumbled on a treasure trove of lights to complement our old favorites. We hope you and those you celebrate with will enjoy them:
Because Southern Village goes all out for Halloween, we ventured in to see what the village people do around Christmastime. They did not disappoint.
We cut through market square, everything dusted in white lights, and past the stores outlined in strands of clean white lights. We didn’t see color until Parkside, which employed many of the classics — hedges draped in multicolored lights, porch railings and deciduous trees wound in lights, and a couple of yard ornament deer kissing. (Aww!) A house on Tharrington offered light-ball ornaments dangling beneath colored icicle lights; another had a snowflake projector skimming over the house that had a different wreath in every window.
On Brookgreen, we pinpointed the house of a researcher, perhaps, that had half of the structure draped in warm incandescent white lights and the other half done in cool LED whites. We’ll watch for results in the Journal of Holiday Lights.
We crossed the divide to Highgrove, where giant inflatables and snowflake projectors rule. Immediately, we were greeted by a super-sized dino-Santa, accompanied by a 12-foot-tall Frosty the Snowman, a smaller Olaf the Snowman and Yoda, while Santa escaped the red-and-green scattered laser lights in a helicopter, complete with a spinning propeller. Traditionalists will appreciate the house across the street, tastefully done in a classic red-and-white theme with a candle in each window.
A shimmery glow led us to Westside Drive to a house apparently vying for Holiday Lights That Can Be Spotted From Outer Space. Two full stories of blazing color behind a fence of glowing candy canes encircling an evergreen festooned in bright blue. A polar bear waved from the second-floor balcony while Santa and his reindeer landed on the lawn, and another large polar bear kept an eye on a hologram Santa peering out from a window on the first floor.
Continuing around the loop, we came across a section of the street that was frosted entirely in white. Word must have gone out on the neighborhood listserv to go all out in any sort of décor, so long as anything electric was white. White icicle lights dripped from eaves; trees trunks and railings were wrapped in white; bushes were swathed in white; and trees were tethered together in ropes of white. We didn’t hit a patch of color until we turned back onto Highgrove.
But wait! Don’t leave until you find Unwin, a cul-de-sac with an electric gingerbread house, complete with an oversized candy cane trellis. Both blue and white icicle lights dangled from the roof. The collection of inflatables included minions, the Grinch, Star Wars characters and a camo-Santa.
From there, we went to check on our regulars: the three-story evergreen wrapped in white lights on Old Lystra Road; and the birthday-cake house at the intersection of Old Forest Creek and Old Forest Creek. Traverse the whole Old Forest Creek loop to see more contemporary designs — austere ropes of colored lights hanging from tall trees; a house whose windows change color while another hologram Santa keeps an eye on you.
Our senses overstimulated by this time, I expected that if the red tree were lit in Chandlers Green this year — the owner says it takes two full days to wrap every twig in red lights — that it would pale in comparison to the new technology we’d already seen. But as soon as we turned the corner onto Sweeten Creek, I remembered why it was — and still is — my favorite. It’s an outburst of pure joy, just when you think you’ve become too jaded to care. What better gift can you give?
Happy holidays, to you and yours, from me and mine.
— Nancy Oates
