Despite its name, this is a global community. I've been wondering if in other parts of the world people like to decorate their front yards and how they do it. I'll start this thread with the photos I took this evening while walking around a neighborhood not far from my own.

It is very different from my neighborhood architecturally and also demographically, most of the families there have young children. There are several clusters of five houses sharing a driveway in the shape of a tiny cul-de-sac. Every year for the holidays this neighborhood puts on a show worth the walk (it takes us a good half an hour to reach it).

I hope you'll like these photos but mostly I really hope that you too will like to show us what your neighborhood looks like this time of year. Or, if in your part of the world holiday decorations are not placed outside of the homes, maybe you'd like to show us your own decorations or festive places around your city.

So a very happy holiday season to you all and let's roll! (Be sure to click the photos to enlarge them).

Bleu_ Those photos are amazing and its another excellent start of a thread and your efforts are appreciated! I must keep watch for holiday decorations in this area even though it may not be in my immediate neighborhood.

This evening I took these two photos (same neighborhood as in the previous post) to show you two little trees that are very common around here:

The blue potato trees look lovely year round, even under all those holiday lights.



Almost every garage in that neighborhood has a couple of these lovely trees. I don't know what kind of tree they are. Their leaves look like citrus leaves and the trees are always pruned to look like umbrellas.

That's very beautiful! I also love to look at Christmas decorations.

Our church is very conservative and does not recognize the new calendar. Therefore, our Christmas on January 7 and Christmas holidays is the first week of January.
The main holiday here is the New Year. But the city is already decorated.

Manor of Santa Claus. Favorite place for children at this time of year.

Such nice decorations, Larisa. Santa's log cabin is so sweet, really very nicely done. And the city holiday scenes are very unique.

Do you exchange gifts on Christmas Eve or the next day?

@GreenTara18, Those decorations are so nice and seem to be done in good taste and not gaudy or over done. Are they done by private individuals or does the community do them in a central area or a park?

Will you have a white Christmas? I keep hearing in forecasts that we may have a brown Christmas. Quoting Ebenezer Scrooge , "Bah Humbug"!

_Bleu_ said:Such nice decorations, Larisa. Santa's log cabin is so sweet, really very nicely done. And the city holiday scenes are very unique.

Do you exchange gifts on Christmas Eve or the next day?

Of course, we make gifts. Personally, I put it under the Christmas tree. But we do not exchange gifts at Christmas. We do it on New Year's Eve.

LCL said:@GreenTara18, Those decorations are so nice and seem to be done in good taste and not gaudy or over done. Are they done by private individuals or does the community do them in a central area or a park?

Will you have a white Christmas? I keep hearing in forecasts that we may have a brown Christmas. Quoting Ebenezer Scrooge , "Bah Humbug"!

City Hall gives money for it. Of course, this is a great work with the participation of artists and decorators. Everything is very serious.
I show some pictures, but the whole city looks great. We get a huge number of tourists at this time. There are so many tourists that the streets become cramped.

There are many videos on YouTube. I just do not know if I can insert a link here. But you can insert "Новогодняя Москва" in the search box and find a video without words, just decorations and music, if you're interested.

White Christmas? If you are talking about snow, then yes.

@GreenTara18,

I just spent a half hour watching some of the videos. How very beautiful! https://www.youtube.com/result...

Every city, big and small, should put on a huge show during December. It's the last month of the year, either too cold or too hot in most places, so why not give people a good reason to be out and about, socialize and have a great time.

@_Bleu_

Therefore, I love the Christmas holidays. This is a special Christmas mood. Excellent opportunity to communicate with family and friends in this fabulous setting.

@GreenTara18 I watched the videos and just can't keep from being overwhelmed! They are beautiful! Perhaps I'm living in the wrong place.
Thank you for sharing!

LCL said:@GreenTara18 I watched the videos and just can't keep from being overwhelmed! They are beautiful! Perhaps I'm living in the wrong place.
Thank you for sharing!

Sometimes I think the same when I see our houseplants in the wild or in parks of warm countries.

But in fact, each of us lives in the right place. Of course, I hope for a world without military conflicts. And I welcome good international tourism.

@GreenTara18, last night we watched several videos off the YouTube page I linked above and couldn't stop saying WOW!

What your city does is SO right! The wondrous displays give citizens such a joyous respite, good job opportunities for artists, technicians, and installation crews and a good source of income from tourism.

It is so very disappointing to see that American cities have lost that. I don't know when or why it started but I do know that in the past two or three decades even the largest US cities have cut down a lot on holiday decorations. Boston, for example, such lovely walkable city, is perfect for that kind of light displays.

@LCL, maybe you should show Boston's mayor those videos, who knows, he might decide to spend some of that big $urplu$ on a decent holiday light display.

Tourism is really a good source of income.
  St. Petersburg attracts tourists with its beautiful classical architecture. Moscow is a creative city.
Moscow attracts tourists with beauty. The town council has removed many roads for cars to make beautiful pedestrian streets. In the summer there are a lot of flowers. Every year there are light shows on the water or buildings.

https://youtu.be/YMapR4-goFM

Very beautiful parks with musical fountains.
And a lot of tourists. It is better to come to see everything in person.
(I hope I do not brag, I just love my city )

Many thanks to you for those pictures.
Sadly in Minn. such city wide decorations are getting to be fewer and fewer.
They are still there but lighted banners across main street which used to be so common are now few and far between.

@_Bleu_, That is a great suggestion re the Boston Mayor or the Governor. About 30 years ago the city had some outstanding displays but since then I think they do more for "First Night" with fireworks, ice sculptures, massive crowds and music..

Hi there aren't many Christmas lighting here in my neighbourhood but here are some photos of the chrsrimas lighting at the popular street in Singapore! I came here yesterday just to see the Christmas lighting! This year theme is Disney!

Here r some other photos if u might want to see. The 4 main themes (with their respective road lighting colors) were: Mickey Mouse (Light blue), frozen (dark blue), Disney princesses (pink), toy story (orange)
😃

These r the 4 themes I was trying to say 😅 notice the diff colored lighting along the car roads. The whole lightings stretched a distance of abt 3km.