How is Christmas in your neighborhood? (St. Charles, Westchester: sick, houses, suburbs)

[Steve-o]

Anyone have any pics of their house/neighborhood/town with lights or other holiday garb? Feel free to post them here. Im going to head back out into St. Charles next weekend with my camera and get some shots, as the town looks so festive all decorated. I found this house below in Elburn tonight and had to take a video of it to share it with you all. This house was pretty cool (and quite big also) as it had a light show that was choreographed to music on a channel you had to tune into in your car.

Click on pic to play video:

[ahava]

That video was awesome. I'm so glad you posted this; I took a ton of these pictures last year. You're making me want to go out and take some more.

Western Springs decorated for the holidays:







(inside the Metra station)


Decorated houses in Western Springs and La Grange: (my camera is horrible in low light so some of these didn't turn out well)

[summers19]

Beautiful photos, ahava. Thanks for sharing. I can't wait to get up there! We're moving two days after Christmas. We are excited to explore the many western suburbs.

[Steve-o]

Nice shots, thanks for sharing! I need to make it out to Western Springs again, lovely town.

[ahava]

Thanks guys. Steve-o, you definitely need to get over here and take some photos. If I have time this week I'm going to North Riverside with my camera. When I was visiting my friend there over the weekend I saw one block where almost every house was heavily lit - it made me wonder if they were having a competition.

[aragx6]

Maybe not a spoken competition- more like ones of those "Keepin' up with the Jones's" kind of things.

[ahava]

My daughter and I spent almost an hour walking around North Riverside tonight and although the houses aren't as cute or impressive as those in Western Springs, it seems like a lot more people decorate in North Riverside. It also definitely seemed like a "keeping up with the Joneses" thing, as there would be groups of 4-5 houses next to each other lit up and then blocks with no houses lit. Here's what we saw:























I thought this inflatable was funny


















I think the colored lights in the bushes are so pretty, especially with the snow


The snow on top of these bushes was so perfect it looked fake






















This one is my favorite

[vicarebo]

Ahava, have you had a chance to go by that neighborhood just north of the Dominick's on 31st street, in Westchester? It used to be an awsome sight, not sure if its still that way. Your pics of WS make me so VERY homesick. Thank you so much for sharing!

[aragx6]

Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but does anyone know how much extra electricity the US uses during the holiday season??

[gardener34]

That area in westchester is not as good as it used to be. But there are still a few in there. There is one guy that has some custom wireformed figures, etc. That are outstanding. Worth a look. I really appreciate that, since we hardly ever bother to decorate. No one sees it we are so far off the road.

Our neighborhood - is lame. This year we did not get any lights outside. Just a wreath on the door. Snow came early. We do have a lot of "halloween nuts" in our neighborhood though. More than typical.

And we have been switching slowly to those LED lights. The energy savings is amazing.