2011 Advent Calendar Outdoor Decorations

This is what I wrote last year for the advent calendar: My mom said my grandfather used to string blue lights along the front of his house for Christmas. I never found the cords and sockets, but my grandmother had a box of 25 watt blue lights.
We strung lights across the front of our house and around the front porch. I made a star out of laths and strung lights on it and hung it in the peak of the house. We liked blinking lights so I put as many blinking lights as I could find and so the whole front of the house blinked. The neighbors across the street strung lights around their big picture window and along the peak of their house also. Very few other neighbors did much decorating, most just put their tree in a front window and left the curtains open. We used to have a lot of vandals that tore up the displays, stole the bulbs, so a lot of neighbors did not want to keep ahead of the vandals. This year a couple of houses down the block are decorated and even in their front yards.
This year I am seeing more of the blow up decorations, Santa, Snowman, reindeer, etc. Some are even moving. One is a merry go round with three characters going around and around.
These two pictures are of my neighbors displays, the one with the white wall is still being added to, so a work in progress.