Awesome Christmas Lights – Four House Personality Types you all know

So last night we decided to do the whole Christmas Light tour thing around the town. I must say, some of the houses were very impressive.

I am personally not big on Christmas, but it is great to see the little guy get into it all awe struck at the site of lights, the sounds of carols and the general cheery (albeit once a year for most people) thing.

I have added a few photos below of my favourites.

1. The over the top old people
Everyone knows these people. The grandparents that just get way to into it. They have been collecting Christmas paraphernalia for the last 50 years and now have a display that rivals some major department stores. These guys even have a guest book, themed windows with different songs in each and a water display. Pretty amazing really.

2. The look at us people
Although the 20ft inflatable Santa is pretty cool, come on guys. We get it, you are well to do.

3. The lets do the entire street people
Oh yes, those streets. The little micro-community that ensure every house on the street has a light display. Pretty cool, but i didn’t enjoy Pleasentville THAT much.

4. If you can’t beat them, join them
Now this one may not rate too well with the little guy. However, this is my personal favourite. Realising that they have lives outside of the holiday period, and simply can’t compete with the neighbours, they have taken a minimalist, humorous approach. I think it is awesome.

I am happy to add more to this if you have your own. Please visit the contact page and send them to me with a link to your blog and i will post them. 🙂

Merry Christmas and stuff.

Christmas is about giving

Just thought i would post this idea as a few of our friends with kids have also adopted it over the last few years.

We have a little boy, 3 years old, who gets very spoilt by everyone. Half his luck, cute little bugger!

Anyway, last year we reached a conclusion around November that we would either have to get an additional room built onto the house to accommodate for his growing collection of toys, or attempt to get rid of some.

My partner and i are always supporting charity, and doing what we can with what we have to make other people’s lives a little bit easier. It is something that we also want our young one to grow up participating in.

As such, we developed a plan to get him to understand the Christmas isn’t about a fat white guy in a red suit handing out toys, it is about family, and giving more so than receiving.

So we sat him down one afternoon and said, ‘look dude, you have alot of toys, some you dont play with anymore. Santa is going to be bringing a whole lot more this year too.’.. ‘YAY!!!’

‘We want you to grab this box and go and fill it up with toys you dont need any more. Then when Santa comes at Christmas we are going to leave the box out for him to take. Some boys and girls don’t have any toys, and Santa needs help to make sure they do.’

Without hesitation, he runs into his room and comes out with a box full. ‘Here you go guys, Santa can take these for the other boys and girls.’

I then go and drop these to a local charity on Christmas Eve.

This will be the 2nd year we have done Christmas this way, and i think it is a good way to get our little guy to understand the true spirit of Christmas. A few of our friends loved our idea and now do the same. It is a much cheap option than house renovations… 🙂

To add to this success, this year a house down the road burnt down. We went to watch, our toddler noticed some kids lived there. When we got home, he went and rounded up a bag of toys for them. (we didn’t even ask him). ‘Here you go guys, the kids in the burned house need some toys, they can have these ones.’

Makes me happy he thinks like this now. 🙂

Best

-Ray