Americans take pride in Christmas home lighting displays

By Petra Engelke Dec 22, 2010, 14:46 GMT

New York - Americans love Christmas. And Christmas lights. No wonder the streets of some cities are lit up light the runways of large airports. In Brooklyn, New York, the competition among neighbours to have the best decorated home has turned into a sort of arms race.

Traffic is jammed all the way up the hill on 84th Street. There's bumper-to-bumper traffic on the streets of Brooklyn. Cars are moving forward just a few metres at a time.

Sometimes a driver honks his horn because the car in front of him hasn't noticed that a space has opened in front of him a few auto lengths long. The drivers and their passengers are busy gawking. Every now and then the flash of a camera goes off behind a car windows or the window rolls down so a passenger can take a cell phone photo.

People also go by foot to stop and stare. It's not at an accident. All this is taking place fully planned.

In Dyker Heights far on the edge of Brooklyn the lights of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge are visible from many places. The bridge connects Brooklyn with Staten Island, and at Christmas, so many more lights are added to the bridge that people come by the bus load and from far away by car to see the sight and take pictures.

The neighbourhood's elaborate light displays began sometime in the 1980s, and it's continued in Brooklyn as elsewhere. When one person in a neighbourhood decorates his front yard and house for Christmas, the other neighbours feel the challenge to make their yard at least as good. The difference is that in New York there are not many neighbourhoods in which there are large front yards. Thus, even small green spaces in the area get plastered with lights sometime around the end of November.

In Dyker Heights there's a touching story that tells the origin of the light decorations: When resident Alfred Polizzotto beat cancer, he celebrated his success by putting up a toy soldier nearly 9 metres tall in front of his house. Polizzotto has since died, but the tradition lives on.

Decorating the outside of one's house in this Italian-American neighbourhood is done not only at Christmas. Some impressive villas flaunt sculptures, Madonna niches and fountains. Such adornments for the front yard, however, are in the way when winter comes around.

At Christmastime the American love of strands of lights takes on a dimension that is akin to an arms race. It's not uncommon for neighbours to up the ante in an effort to trump other homes in their subdivision. Five years ago a resident of Ohio covered his entire house with lights that flickered to the beat of a pop song. When hoards of curious people came to see it, they disrupted traffic so badly authorities had to order the display stopped.

However, some Americans forget to think about how their lust for lights might affect their electric bill and get a terrible surprise in January, said Paige Layne, a spokeswoman for an electric company, in the Gaston Gazette.

Some customers use more electricity in December than in the middle of summer when their air-conditioners are running. In Delaware, one family completely covered their house with 100,000 lights, which a media report said cost 650 dollars per hour to light.

A group of people who had arrived by bus recently gathered in front of a lit-up house in Dyker Heights. The inside of the house is also decorated, and in the back yard there is an entire fantasy land of figures.

Visitors from other countries stop to have a look and as the crowd stand in amazement. As they viewed the display, someone saying 'excuse me' could be heard. The man had to say it a second time, still politely, but somewhat clearer before space was made for him to get through. Was it someone who couldn't wait to get to the front to take photos?

No, the man said he was just trying to get into his house. Ah, yes. People live here, too, in this colourfully lit up wonderland.