I've been meaning to do this since we returned back to Australia, but I finally set up a little map of the top rated Christmas lights in our city (and next year, I will have a look at the Halloween recommendations... even though that is more of an American thing...). I had found a website where people would list their houses with their decorations and light shows, and I took down the top rated ones into a Google Map which I then shared with the extended family.

In previous years, we had just done a bit of a drive around town... and just stopped off in the various places that we would see... and that clocked a few nice ones... and those, we were pretty impressed already. But nothing would prepare us for the huge displays that we would be seeing this particular evening (and following evenings!).

It is astounding the amount of effort and time and care that people put into these decorations, and... well, my big questions is... where do things get stored afterwards?

Now, nightfall isn't until about 2030 in the evening at the moment... and that means that we can only feasibly visit a handful of houses per night before the little one gets too tired... and she also gets a big of a sugar high from the lollies that every second house seems to hand out!

Here are a few excerpts from our nights out!!! Enjoy!

The first stop was around the corner from a popular street of lights... and weirdly enough, we didn't go to that street... too many people, and everyone was walking in the different direction to us.

... but when we got here... well, it was pretty amazing... lot of Disney stuff as well, and all of it animated, moving, and talking as well! The life size Darth Vader was a bit disturbing! And the Grinch was pretty crazy!

Same house, but with a fake Santa... I find these life size fake Santas to be a bit like the start of a horror movie...

A nice quiet little house with a small but cute display! And when you come close, they turn on a snow machine! Me and the kids were blown away by the huge bear... but my wife thought we were talking about the one next to the Santa... for some reason, she didn't see the HUGE ONE!

... okay, this is pretty damn impressive! I'm not sure how they got that up there... I'm sure that there are ways and means!

... and there was a button that you could press to let out dry ice smoke! Pretty cool!

Two houses right next to each other... the owner of one was telling us how he started 15 years ago with a single string of lights... and then they (the men...) started trying to outdo each other... until they got too large, and then they started to co-operate to make one huge display! Amazing... they start immediately after Halloween... he said that laid about 1/2 kilometer (75739927575.463893634 caterpillars for our American friends...) of lights on the first day alone!

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