That’s not the case here in Kansas City. It’s practically a law that you have to have lights on your house, your trees, your roof, even your car. Of course, with energy prices the way they are, I can see why some might not put up lights anymore.

Lights on cars? How? Some folks around here stick wreaths on their front grills, but nothing wildly creative like lights.

In years past, I’ve kind of poked fun at some houses that go nuts with lights. But you know something? Now that they aren’t there, I really miss them. Maybe it is the high cost of energy this year. I have to admit that I’m being pretty stingy with the lights on our house. They’re only on for a couple of hours each evening.

I took some fairly lousy pictures of ones in my neighborhood.  They’re here.  Enlarge them to get a decent view.

One of them has a projected Santa onto a blank wall, but it doesn’t show up well at Flickr, while on my machine it’s not bad.  Don’t know why.

Reindeer! Pretty colors. Bright lights. Folks in your neighborhood have the festive spirit.  Bunch of scrooges around here.

It is interesting to see Christmas lights in the background with a hedge full of leaves and flowers in the foreground. Sometimes we in the NE forget that the rest of the world isn’t a barren frigid landscape at this time of year.

I think it might be energy prices...we are trying to be a little more careful all around as our Nov. electric bill was 90 and the one that arrived two days ago was 140.00 and we really aren’t even into the season yet.......crazy.

It is interesting to see Christmas lights in the background with a hedge full of leaves and flowers in the foreground.

What a polite way of saying how poor the photographer was at getting the shot!

It was from the deck outside our family room.  We’re on a corner and kind of in a hole.  Our lot slopes down about 30 degrees.

Yes, GC2 and I did the other night on the way home from basketball! There are a couple of houses here in the city that we use to drive just to see when we lived in your city years ago. Nothing, nadda!

LOL, Linkmeister. I wasn’t saying any such thing. But seeing flowers in December is a treat! I dunno, maybe you guys think the same thing about snow....

J—maybe it’s a regional thing. People stunned by high electric and gas bills are shutting everything off this year. I noticed that many people are putting their Christmas trees in their front windows for decoration. Far more subtle than years past, but at least it’s something.

Yikes, Cyn. So far my electric has been about the same. It runs around $65 a month. The gas is what kills me though. Short of turning the hot water heater off, I can’t make the bill go any lower now. And it’s also running around $65 which seems terribly expensive for the privilege of having hot water—which is stretching the term. I even turned the hot water heater down. The water isn’t exactly hot anymore. It’s warm enough to make a shower bearable and that’s it.