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Nightly Ramble: The Neighborhood Lights

I promised you some pictures of the neighborhood Christmas lights, and frankly, I’ve not followed through, because I’ve been waiting for snow.  It plays so much better with the light.  But while we wait, how about I give you some pictures that I’ve had on file for a couple of years, of the same neighborhood?img_09171.JPG

There’s an area within a stone’s throw of my little piece of America, that every year has some of the best Christmas lights in this part of the state, and that includes Niagara Falls, which is far better known for their show. Every year these quiet little residential side streets, which hardly see any traffic at all, suddenly explode with traffic is if their giving away something precious; and I suppose they are.
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This is the house (above) that started it all. Rumor has it that the owner of this house is a retiree from the local gas and electric, though I’ve never had that confirmed. This will be about 25 years now, that they’ve been doing this kind of display at this house.  If you look very closely, you may notice that the lights are actually running between three different houses in this case.  I don’t know if this family relationships between these neighbors, but you would think that to be the case when you see the display close up.  I’ll try to get a better shot of that this year.
We’re talking middling income houses, here.  These are not rich folks.  We’re talking perhaps $100,000-$150,000 homes.

Well, once the neighborhood noticed the traffic this first set of houses was getting, well… everybody else, for blocks around, kinda fell in line, after that.  These days, just about every other house in the neighborhood, literally, for blocks around, has some serious decorations going by this time of year. When I say serious, I’m talking about the same kind of scale as this house, here.  There’s a couple that actually have refreshments sitting out in the driveway.  One guy even had a pop corn maker and a commercial grade coffee maker brewing out in front, (And yes, hot chocolate, too) for the gawkers… Of which there are many. This is a neighborhood where if you get ten to twelve cars and any other time during the year, the police get called.  This time of year it’s pretty much status quo, as you can see.
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Here’s a zoom shot..(below) of the first house I mentioned.  As you can see they go through some serious buildup for this every year.  Normally we see them starting to put up these lights in the beginning of November.  Apparently, the issue is to try and beat snowstorms that come in.
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I’ll have some more for you, as this season progresses.  Hopefully, we’ll have a few with some snow in the shot.