Christmas Light Contest Report: Judging has Commenced...

My wife and I volunteered again to serve as judges for the annual Christmas Lighting contest held in our neighborhood each year. Please make your bribe checks out accordingly. And no, we can't help you with your desire to become a Senator.

At any rate, last night, we took a drive through three of the seven sub-divisions that make up our association looking for houses decorated enough to warrant consideration, and then began the process of taking pictures and getting the addresses and such. I am pleased to report that, while we still have a few homes in our area where the owners simply don't want anyone to know the address, for the most part, most residents have clearly marked their homes with street numbers. Perhaps they read my extreme rant last year, and got the hint.

We had made up our minds that we were not going to vote for the house with the most lights - that we wanted there to be something put into the design beyond one of these fan-driven blow-up Santa's. I won't go into all of our specific deliberations, especially since we have more homes to look at tonight and possibly tomorrow, but one house that was a winner last year was not going to be an automatic winner in our mind, if they simply repeated the design from last year. Even though we were not looking at Emerald Valley last night, we did decided to take a drive over to the home in question just to see if the family there did a repeat.

People, if you live in the GNW area or within easy driving of the Culebra/Tezel/Grissom, it is worth it to come and take a look at the home on Stone Village. No street address needed - just follow the cars. These folks totally revamped the show with an emphasis on The Chipmunks. Pictures don't do it justice. Tune your car radio to 107.1FM, take the kids and do a short drive by. You should know that this is a cul de sac, so if a lot of folks show up, you may have to use extreme patience and care to go through. Please, watch for kids.

No, we aren't Windcrest but this year, a lot more people seem to have really gotten into the whole Christmas lighting thing. Lots of good lights to see.

Christmas Lights Report: You Don't Have to Go Far...

It isn't Windcrest but it sure is a lot closer. In case you hadn't heard, the city of Windcrest located just East of Loop 410 and IH-35 on San Antonio's north east side, is famous for their yearly display of Christmas lights. It isn't so much that the city sends some guy out to adorn each home with flashing lights and reindeer displays, but more along the lines of the homeowners really getting into the Christmas spirit. The result is long streams of cars traveling in and around the streets looking at the spectacular displays.

Not to be outdone, my wife and I have in years past driven through some pretty impressive displays on San Antonio's West Side like along 24th Street and such.  The only difference being that you can go anytime of year and Christmas lights up on some of the houses there.  Okay, bad joke. (but true).

Anywhoo, within The 78250, we have found the many folks get into the spirit as well and beyond just the usual string of icescickles (famous at my house), you have really well done displays. We enjoy driving through Braun Station and the other Braun-like neighborhoods along Guilbeau and Tezel. Of course, the Great Northwest Community where we live has a yearly contest that seems to motivate a lot of our homeowners to go all out.
So, if you feel like getting out to check out the lights but don't want to drive all the way to Windcrest, I'll make a quick recommendation of Silver Creek. There are two must see areas, though many other streets are worth driving through. First, the houses along Timber Belt really seem to get into it.Second, on the other side of Silver Creek closer to Silent Sunrise is a road called Timber Grand. Timber Grand has a series of streets that all connect together so you basically take the first street and just zig-zag your way to the end. There are some truly magnificent, Windcrest Worthy decorations and displays in this area.So load up the kids, get a mug of hot chocolate, and take a short drive just after dark. It just may motivate you to go spend a small fortune after the holidays on all the 75% off sales on lights and snowmen and blow-up Santa's and such. Or you can be like me and just appreicate other people's spirit!