The Christmas Lawn Cheer Contest

My husband and I are fools for the holidays. We are all about the lights, the cheer, the music, the trees and the gifts. But we love, love, love Christmas lights. The day after Thanksgiving we start roaming the streets, looking for the pretty lights.

We think nothing of hopping in the car after dinner and spending a good hour and a half circling local neighborhoods looking at lights. We've gone to Sleepy Hollow in Torrance. The Christmas Village in Cambria. Hearst Castle Christmas Tour. The Enchanted Forest light show at Descanso Gardens. A Christmas Village in Cologne, Germany.

We have our Christmas lights street cred.

We have serious discussions over the merits of a home's display. Classic vs modern? C-7s vs. LED. Primary colors vs black light colors? Wire frames vs blow ups? Good use of lights? Foliage utilized adequately?

Last night, we went next level.

I found some WINNER ribbons at Allin Party Supply down the street. For $5 and some change, my husband and I had one of the best holiday dates ever.

My mom is weird in the best ways. I've told you stories. When I was a kid, we'd get in our van, with handfuls of old horse show ribbons. We'd circle nice neighborhoods in Ft. Worth and hang ribbons on houses that made us laugh in delight. Sometimes because the were amazing and sometimes because they were awful. I told Scott this story and we agreed it was time to revive the tradition.

We visited Crazy Town first. It's on Carson near the Von's. If you know the general area I'm talking about-You know this house. It's magnificent. It glows. There is a theme. Use of lights are engaging. We deemed this a WINNER.

We parked. Scott hopped out, took a picture, hung the ribbon, and we jetted out of there, giggling.

Now, let make something clear. We LOVE these houses. These are sincere ribbons. We drive around like Roman Emperors demanding to be amused. When a house makes us hit the brakes, throw up our hands, and shout, "Whoa! You win Christmas!"

Those are our winners. The absolute Griswoldian spirit of the holidays. We want to see it from space. We had one overarching caveat:

Tasteful or tacky: you gotta go for it. No waffling
There wasn't complete anarchy with this. We had rules. You gotta have rules. They sorta evolved naturally. After about 30 minutes of judging debates, we agreed on the following:

• No blow-ups. They're lazy. My mom built a plane out of foam core, covered in it wrapping paper and lights, with a spinning propeller and a waving Santa. That deserves a ribbon.
• No black light LED colored light. Their color is to cold. Fail
• C7s have classic appeal. Extra points
• You go with one to two color lighting it better be striking.
• Outlining your house and/or trees gets participant mark. Try harder next year
• Dark expanses of lawn are wasted space. Get an extension cord.
• Rotating lights must be used judiciously and wisely. If it has no place in the display thematically, it is automatic fail
• No nativities. 
• No FREAKING Olafs. We don't need to explain this. He knows what he did.
• No MINIONS. They're stupid. And have nothing to do with Christmas. 
• Bart Simpsons are acceptable. Our contest. Our rules.
• Use of classic plastic figurines, big plus.
• Blow-ups are ok on the roof, only if they are impressive. (Later rule)
• Lollipop lights and candy cane lights lining walkways get Wonka points. 

Three of the award winning houses are on our street. We walked the dog earlier and noticed all the ribbons were still hung up. We wondered if they had even noticed them yet or did notice and left them up with pride.

 

But that's what makes it so punk rock, so DaDaesque performance art. We don't know the results of our actions. We had fun. We made a statement. Hopefully, it brings pride and cheer to the lucky winners and hopefully spawn bigger and better displays for us to enjoy next year!

Some more WINNERS: