In the South, you can always tell that Christmas is getting closer simply by the noticing the amount of Christmas lights on people’s homes that are actually turned ON, not just the ones that are usually left hanging on the house year round.

My husband and I were taking the kids and my in-laws to Lake Lanier Islands to see the “Night of Lights”, where you drive in your car, turn your radio to a certain station to hear coordinated Christmas songs, and watch the amazing light display that Lake Lanier is famous for.

We were all in the car, laughing and talking about the upcoming holidays, when we drove by a few houses that had lights all over, and several of those blow up decorations including Yoda decked out in a Santa suit and elves riding on a see-saw. (It’s just not Christmas without seeing something like that.) Multi-colored lights were thrown up in the trees; the owners clearly hoping for a beautiful, artsy effect with minimal effort.

As we drove by another display, however, our SUV to come to a screeching halt.

My husband and I saw it first. We looked at each other, kind of in shock. I choked on my diet Coke. He screamed out “Oh My God did you see that???”

My in-laws thought we had run over a small animal. They asked what was wrong so we did a U-turn in the middle of the road, drove 100 feet back down the road and did another U-turn.

Then, this is the display we saw:

Okay, so I can reasonably imagine that you are having the same reaction that we did. (Thankfully, the kids just saw colorful Christmas lights through their virgin eyes and they just thought we were laughing at how pretty the lights were).

Was this a joke?

Nope.

This was simply a too-many-Budweisers-Christmas-light-throwing-in-the-tree blooper. To add to the visual enjoyment, the limbs were swaying in a light breeze giving it a nice life-like effect.

So people, please, if you are going to hang Christmas lights by randomly tossing them into the trees, do a quick drive by, so that people don’t think your home is a brothel.

But I must say that the entertainment value was priceless….and a year later, we are still laughing about it.