Do you go see residential Christmas house lights?

[wishesuponastar]

I want to do this with my kids but don’t know what to expect. If you just drive by or park somewhere? Do you go to several houses the same night? Sounds fun

 

[Kitty 34]

We drove around looking at lights all the time when our boys were young. It was so much fun until sometimes the back windows fogged up so bad the boys could hardly see the neighborhood lights.

 

[dish rag]

Yes.

 

[Turksmom]

Yes. If we're out in the evening, we'll detour through a few housing developments to see the lights. On Christmas Eve, we bundle up and walk around our own neighborhood and the n go home for hot cocoa and cookies. Sometimes friends and relatives will join us.

 

[Meriweather]

Every Christmas Eve.....the family spends the night. And we all go out and walk around our neighborhood

 

[mamamary]

Haven’t done it in a few years but used to all the time when the kids were younger.

 

[cinnaminny]

We always do this. My husband and I also like to stroll through our own neighborhood in the evenings. Many houses in our neighborhood are well decorated. Some are actually pretty amazing. We also try to do a real lighting event also. We have a few places in and around our city that are locally famous for their lights (Grotto, Zoo lights, Ships, Peacock lane etc)

 

[diznygirl]

Yes. We get in the car with cookies and drive around town. The kids look forward to it every year. And they are teens now! LOL

 

[L&Lfan]

No ... not our thing.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I want to do this with my kids but don’t know what to expect. If you just drive by or park somewhere? Do you go to several houses the same night? Sounds fun

It's really going to depend on your area.

Here, there's actually a website that keeps track of holiday light displays between the two state lines in our metro area-a mixture of ones that are held by a business/place to go to, ones that are neighborhood house ones and ones that are individual houses.

Some places you park your car and watch the display (are often on a loop and with the headlights off as a normal etiquette) and often have a specific radio station to tune into so the lights are synchronized with the music. Some places are strictly drive through (with the headlights off as a normal etiquette). Some singular houses you're able to park and look at the lights from your car (with the headlights off as a normal etiquette).

Normally I compile a list and map it out before we go in order to minimize backtracking. We do ours in one night except one of the places sometimes we just save that one for another night depending on the weather and how many places we've gone to already. We've often gone on Christmas Eve (though that's a very busy night to go in our area) but previous plans, weather, etc all play a role in when we actually go out. We went to this one place that you drive through (at one of the lakes at a county park) on the other side of the state line one year and even though it was really nice looking it took 1 1/2 hours of waiting in stop and go traffic just to get to the entrance of it. It was just too long of a wait at that time. Not sure if another night would have been better as it's a popular one. Maybe we'll try it again some day.

Maybe you could try and google search your area to see if there's at least someone that has ones in mind to go to, check out if your local news covers any display in particular (like we have one that's known as the penguin house with a bunch of inflatable displays), ask on a social networking site like Facebook or if you have Nextdoor in your area, etc.

 

[brockash]

I want to do this with my kids but don’t know what to expect. If you just drive by or park somewhere? Do you go to several houses the same night? Sounds fun

We just drive around the neighborhood or occasionally if we hear of a neighborhood that has a lot of detailed lighting etc we may drive around there. We usually take hot chocolate with us and listen to xmas music.

 

[Floridaman999]

I did many years ago but it's not something I do anymore. I'll notice them when I'm out and about, but I don't go to seek them out.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

I don't know whether it is a function of where we live now vs then or that times have changed. But when I was a kid, everyone had lights up. These days, less than half do. We drove around and looked all the time back then. We don't make a point to now unless we see a neighborhood all decked out.

 

[GoingSince1990]

Dyker Heights in Brooklyn is incredible. We’ve been going for almost 30 years. When we first started going it was only locals and people who found out by word of mouth; now they have tour buses and the sidewalks can get pretty crowded.

 

[dotfurio]

We have a neighborhood that is known locally for their Christmas lights, plus the local newspaper publishes a list of fantastic displays around town. We pile in the car on a Friday or Saturday with cocoa from Starbucks and listen to Christmas music while we drive around. One of the houses in that one neighborhood sells cocoa and cookies as well. Every year it seems there are fewer displays, though.

 

[jaiminee krikit]

My aunt would take us when I was a kid. There was a subdivision just outside of town that had very nice houses and most of them did amazing decorations. A few houses in one cul-de-sac would even coordinate their decorations and change things up every year, that was always my favorite. Another house always had a gigantic blue star made out of lights on their roof, I always loved seeing that one. Took DD out that way many years ago and it definitely isn't what is used to be, but the blue star was still there.
If we get time, we like to still look at decorations, we'll make a trip to do it or take a detour and check some out. We'd make some hot cocoa, play our favorite Christmas tunes, and vote for our favorites. DD is so crazy busy any more that we haven't gotten to do it in a couple of years.

 

[bcla]

There are some homes in our area where people have displays that attract attention every year.

However, we had a legendary display of a scene of Bethlehem every year at someone's large yard. During the spring he would plant various pattens in the yard with flowers arranged for things like flag or oriental carpet patterns. But in the winter the flowers would inevitably go away and over the years he'd built up an impressive display. It wasn't a nativity scene since he was a Sikh immigrant

https://www.kqed.org/news/11639036/...rted-el-cerritos-favorite-christmas-tradition

http://shadiholidaydisplay.com/memories.html

It's kind of strange since I've been past his old property. The house sold, but the lot was apparently sold separately. Someone is building a house on the lot now. But the display was donated to a volunteer group, and our local power utility allows it to be displayed every year on its property under a power line tower.

This is the current display:

 

[a1tinkfans]

We ll be looking at some communities known for their decorated houses this week.
As a kid my dad used to take us.. nice memories.

 

[rickybobby]

Our local newspaper also lists houses and businesses that have impressive displays.

 

[Diznygrl]

I'm 37 and I still do this with my mom every year. Occasionally we will go look at some of the fancier more well-known display locations, but for the most part we avoid all of that (too many people/cars). We just drive around and go through whatever random neighborhood looks like it might be interesting.