There's one in every neighborhood...

[urbpan]

I took this photo sort of as a study, so that cottonmanifesto would be reminded to take some great photos of this house. This place (known locally as "the Castle") is on the Arborway in Jamaica Plain, and they decorate for lots of different holidays, but at the end of December, they pull out the stops. According to this 2006 article, it costs over 2000 dollars for the month's worth of electricity. This year there are more lights than last year, notably the 20 foot tall star of David and the trio of cones at right, so that figure has gone up somewhat. I noticed in the past year a trend of combining images of patriotism with traditional xmas bad taste--is this a new thing, or is only new to Massachusetts?

Comments

[deederange.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, lights are a tremendous waste of electricity, but on the other hand, man, this makes me homesick.

Is that house still there on Rte 60, just after you cross over Rte 2 from Arlington into Belmont? That was my favorite, I used to take my mom out there to look at it, it had everything including a cowboy santa, multiple Jesuses (Jesii?), Rudolph, oh it was just so gloriously in bad taste, I loved it.

There was another further down Rte 60 into Waltham, off of (I think) Arbuckle street, where they had a million things, and Santa would stand out front handing out candy canes, and they had a train inside the house, and the people would invite you in to see the train. None of this is environmentally appropriate, but man, it sure was pretty.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Belmont house is still decorating. I drive by it on my way home from work every night.