lights, lights, and more lights

This past Saturday brought me an entirely new experience: Tacky Lights Tour. I'm sure that this happens in North Carolina and probably New Orleans, but I have never in my whole life seen anything like these houses. The pictures in this post are from only the first house where we went. Let me set out the scene of this first house for you.

There are four of us in the car. We are coming from a fun Christmas concert that one of our fellow interns was in at her home church, so we are already feeling the holiday cheer. We are wary that this house we are headed towards could be a let down in the face of our incredibly high expectations. However, as we turn down the road on which this house resides, there are lit candy canes lining the whole road. We slowly creep forward approaching the cul-de-sac, but we still can't see anything more than ordinary lights on ordinary houses. Then, all of a sudden, We get to the final turn into the cul-de-sac, and there it is. It is the most glorious display of lights I have ever seen! More lights than I could ever imagine being on one house/lawn. I don't even have words to describe how many lights were happening on this house.

I think the best part of this is that, in the moment we turned the last corner and saw the full picture of what was happening at that house, the four of us were of one accord. We all erupted in shouts of awe and joy, busted open the car doors, and ran over to the house to admire the scene (leaving the car with the doors fully open in the middle of the cul-de-sac). It's rare that you are in a group of people who are so fully of one mind.

Not only did we run around the yard and look at all it had to offer, but we actual struck up a conversation with the house owner. Chuck has multiple sheds in his back yard as well as storage space at his daughter's house to keep all the things throughout the year. It takes him five to six weeks to set it all up, and he spends at least two or three days on the electrical side of things to make sure that it can all be powered without blowing a fuse or anything negative happening. He had to buy a second breaker box. His electric bill goes up by something like $450 dollars in the months before Christmas. He told us stories of being Santa for the kids who come to see the house and about how he got started with all this. Chuck is a really lovely man.

After saying our goodbyes to Chuck and his lovely abode, we drove around Mechanicsville and the West End taking in more houses with more lights. There was even a set-up where the parents and kid lived next to each other and did both houses up, which was absurd and wonderful and way too much to take in with your eyes. There was one house that you had to stay in your car and drive through their super long driveway and out the other side.

This night of festivities and merriment ended with River City Diner and the consumption of deliciously greasy breakfast food. Yum.