Christmas Lights, Christmas Nights

NB: One last post from the road - I wrote this Friday morning before check-out. I've made some edits since.

Just caught CBS's Early Show - yes, I am one of the 753 people around the country that watches it instead of Today or GMA (it's a Don-and-Marty lead in; Richmond's Don-and-Marty (Virginia This Morning)? A bit more "sedate" - like WJZ on weekend mornings). They interviewed this fella Bruce Littlefield (absolutely adorable man*) who put out this book Merry Christmas, America! about THE most over-the-top Christmas lights. Here's the link to the full 6-and-a-quarter minute video (on CBS News' website).

He specifically mentioned Baltimore's lights (not by street, but they showed 34th Street) and Richmond's (which I got a gander at last night). He said they do "Tacky Light Tours" in Richmond. I wish I had known that, because I would've been all over that. I am sure there are some lovely lights in this city. Unfortunately, I mostly just saw some eye-poppingly SloPpY ones. At least three literally looked like they just took whole strings of Christmas lights, closed their eyes and just threw them on to the front of the building. Again, I wish I had hooked up with one of these tours and seen some good ones - unless, of course, the tacky lights in question ARE the bad ones I saw last night!

On a different tangent: OMG I am watching this white woman perform the most HIDEOUS interpretive hip-hop-esque dance to various songs, including Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas", on Richmond's Virginia This Morning right this second. It's about 8:55, and it's part-embarrassing, part-MST3K-worthy, and part-godawful. I hope and pray someone puts this on YouTube. In lieu of that, here's a clip of Bruce showing you how to quickly and tastefully decorate your home for the holidays, this time on Today:



* I doubt you'll ever read this, Bruce, but yes - I am flirting just a wee bit