Judge

I got a call yesterday morning from Andrea at the Convention Center, "Beth, are you busy tonight? Want to be a judge for the Residential Holiday Light Contest?" Oh YEAH, I'd love to!

The other judge, Susan, was staying at the KOA Kampground in her motor home. Van Horn likes to do that--when there's something to judge, they enlist an enthusiastic and friendly tourist for an impartial opinion. Since I can't yet match Van Horn residents to their homes, particularly after dark, I was tapped for the job too.

Susan is a typical traveler in our town. She and her husband sold their home and all their possessions in Virginia earlier this year and are traveling the country, trying to soak up life, "before we're too old to do it." A former real estate agent, she's got a friendly attitude and an eager smile and she LOVES to talk. In a few short weeks here, she's met a lot of Van Horn folks, but like me, she doesn't have any idea where individual folks live. Her husband got a temporary job on a road crew, so they'll be here through the end of January.

After Brenda and Andrea treated us to steak dinners at the Cattleman's Restaurant, they drove us around town in the city van. Susan and I were officially armed with clip boards and rating sheets. We judged decorations on "originality, creativity, the amount of decoration, the quantity of lights (I guess more is better), and workmanship." Most of the homes had the same decorations--probably all purchased from the local Dollar Store--just rearranged into different configurations. There was some creativity, even in that. One family positioned a huge inflated Santa and a huge inflated Snowman on either side of their volleyball net, getting extra points for whimsy.

A handful of families made their own decorations, getting big points from me. One family set up a drive-in theatre in their yard, so cars could pull up to watch Christmas cartoons projected on their mobile home. One family made a tree of pie tins. One family made a creche scene out of plywood, with Holly Hobby characters filling the roles of the usual wisemen, etc. Yes, that's more than a little dreadful, but they tried.

Some families are clearly trying to outdo the Griswolds in the Christmas Vacation movie; they are pushing the wattage. Normally we pride ourselves on our clear dark star-gazing skies. I can tell you, we won't be seeing many stars until after the holidays.