Phoenix Christmas Lights – Dec 2017

You can call them holiday lights and you’d be politically correct, but wrong. They are for JC’s birthday. Nobody puts up lights at this time of the year for anything other than JC’s birthday. So, Happy Birthday JFC. Turn on the lights, Phoenix!

We heard that the Mormon Church of Phoenix puts out a pretty good light display for the birthday boy. Then Andrea found a web site of a local radio station that listed the best 100 private home Christmas lights displays. Those homes owners had volunteered their addresses to be listed. We looked at the listings and tried to pick the ones with lights in at least the six figures. Yeah, some of them are really proud of their massive electric bills. Whatever, let’s go.

The Phoenix highway system is, by far, the easiest to navigate of any city we’ve been in, so we weren’t too concerned with which houses to visit, in terms of distance. That said, it still took a few hours to see just seven houses and the Mormon Church – the first night. We had so much fun, we went back two days later and saw seven or eight more houses.

It’s such an easy city to get around. If you want a cheap winter, or near winter, getaway, Frontier and Southwest compete to get you there. The lights go up about two weeks before Christmas. There’s enough to see, other than the lights, for a week. Check it out. Hey Phoenix Tourism Board – hire me! Or send me discount coupons!

The Mormon Church was our first stop.

The next one was carnival-like. People were parked up and down the streets. This house was a good start.

After that first “private” house, it was all a blur, but fun. The address for this one was just the street. Every house on the street got into the act. There were limos at the end of the block – lights tours. There were two, maybe three horse-drawn carriages taking people up and down the street. There were a couple of vendor trucks serving hot dogs, hot chocolate, and ice cream. People wandering around like blinded zombies. Fun atmosphere.

This next one was the lone house on the block lit up but you could see it a few blocks away. It was pretty damn cool.

We got out at the next one and sat down in the driveway to watch a few minutes of Tim Allen in ‘The Santa Claus’. We saw people with popcorn and then got a bagful at the popcorn machine. The host then brought us some hot chocolate. Nice touch. The rest of his property was a sea of lights.

A few more:

The one above included the obligatory radio station to tune into the Trans Siberian Orchestra performance of ‘Christmas/ Sarejevo 12/24’. We saw them live at the ice arena in Colorado Springs a few years ago and, quite frankly, I had only heard that one song so I was not sure what to expect. Then it was on – Jesus meets heavy metal. Holy shit! I loved it. That was the loudest concert I’d ever been to and I’ve seen John McGlaughlin – with Frank Zappa, with Carlos Santana, Yes, ELP, old Genesis, and Pink Floyd (and variations, solos, and tributes) more times than I can count – ok, I’m not that stupid, I was always good at math, but that was volume metal guitar, bass, and electric violin at instant tinnitus levels! Damn! Why’d you have me bring up tinnitus? Whooop, there it is! Don’t you hate it?

But, I digress.

And finally, we wondered how all those people in front of this house in a cul-de-sac got there before we saw the bus around the corner.

And we saw no more than 15 listings. A lot of crazies. A lot of fun.

Goodbye to 2017. Good riddance.