Advent Calendar Day 5 ~ Outdoor Decorations

We have a corner lot. I could go absolutely bonkers decorating my front yard! Years ago, outdoor decorations consisted of lights around the house, period, the end. I remember our family talking about the color of lights some people used. For instance all blue lights that were so dark it was almost depressing. How about the houses with lights that made it look like it was a house of ill repute?

Twenty years ago my husband and I were mentioned in the local newspaper. We were honored for "beautifying the neighborhood." At the time we were the only ones in the neighborhood who decorated outside our house. I am not sure why that was, but we have always decorated our yard.

My most favorite things in the world (not food related) is water and lights. I may have told you this before somewhere along the line. When it comes to outside decorating. I try to get all I can! My husband is very patient with me and does all that he can, until it comes to the point he says we have to have another transformer to add any more. He refuses to do this for me. Can you imagine? Well, he is retired from the power company so he makes it sound good, but I think we could really do more than we do without another transformer. Who is he trying to kid?

Lights go all around the house, and were added to the second story when we did the addition. In fact, when we did the addition, we purposely had a couple outside plugs added to the second level along with light switches inside to turn the power on and off. There are wreaths, windsocks, reindeer, a train, and a large Christmas card usually placed in our front yard along with some other novelties of the holiday season.

The photo above isn't the best quality. I apologize for it's quality, it is a picture of a picture. At the top of the Christmas card you can see some lights, these are the lights hanging from the house. It gives you an idea how large the card is.

I can't begin to tell you how many bushes and trees get covered in lights. The Christmas card is trimmed with lights and has a spotlight focused on it. The reindeer have lights, the house has lights, the train has lights, and on and on. We light up the whole corner of our neighborhood! In fact, every year the neighbors start panicking if our lights aren't up soon enough, they question us if they are going up.

I often have told my husband that I need to live across the street so I can look at our house! For many years I think this was why many of the neighbors didn't decorate outside their house, they felt they didn't need to. We tried scaling back a few years, but it didn't make any difference with their decorating schedules. Most of the neighbors do a little bit outside now, but we do still have a few neighbors who have never put out anything. I imagine holiday lights will be cut way back this year as the economy just isn't in the right place for most people.

The outside of my house is not decorated yet, hopefully it will be done this weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts!