The great Christmas decoration challenge!

UPDATE: It's January 13th, almost a full three weeks after Christmas. Most people have taken their Christmas lights down, haphazardly bundled them into balls they will never untangle next year and thrown them back in the unmarked boxes in the attic to not be disturbed until next Christmas.

Notice how I said most.

On my way home from work this evening, I passed 30 houses (including a neighbor up the street from my own house) still proudly displaying their holiday lights. Wrapped trees of shiny white lights, automated Santa Clauses, even electric candles in each window. At first, I thought about discounting candle houses, but soon realized candle people probably put more effort into lighting those individual candles in each window. Amazing. And I didn't even go out of my way to find these houses. I'll update everyone in the next few days and let everyone know what the count is. And please feel free to tell me about any houses you've witnessed with the holiday spirit alive and well.

Sure, Christmas and New Year's is over, but that doesn't mean we have to turn our back on the holidays so soon... in fact this is the greatest time of the year to see just who can and who really can't give up on the holidays.

I'm of course, talking about the people who keep their lights up an uncomfortably long time after the holidays are over.

Read more on the flip side!



I love driving home from work, seeing the sporadic smattering of houses along the route defiant in their belief that the holiday season has to end after January 1. There they sit, as yule time beacons amongst the other darkened bah humbugs.

What is the motivation? A clinging to the good times of the holidays? A prideful display of hard work for all to see? We may never know, but we will see what lengths people will go to keep the holiday cheer going well into 2009.

It is that zeal that has driven me to attempt to find out just who keeps their holiday decorations up the longest. And that is where you can come in. Now, obviously this will be as unscientific as MTV's Fear, but it's all we have right now. If everyone could keep their eyes out for holiday decorations, and either leave it in the comments, or email with the town you've seen it, we can get to the bottom of this bizarre phenomenon once and for all.

The "rules:"

• Outdoor lighting/decorations. Inside Christmas trees don't count.
• Begrudgingly, I'll accept wreaths spotlighted on doors, but only when we're out of light decorated houses. In fact, I hope it doesn't come to this.
• Haven't taken your lights down yourself and feeling like they would really enhance your Easter celebration? I love it. Send a picture in and I'll throw it up. The more the merrier.

Now, obviously right now, it's not really that big a deal to still see lights out on houses. We're less than a week out from New Year's Day. Heck, my local park still has its display out. So, it's not really a big deal. But after this weekend it starts getting desperate. Third week, it starts getting sad, last week in January and now you think it's being done on purpose and by February, if you still see lights on houses, you begin to wonder if someone inside had an accident and didn't have a Life Alert bracelet.

So, keep your eyes peeled at night and keep a mental list of some of those houses that just might keep the holiday cheer going for an uncomfortably long time.