Christmas in Cotton Plant

I love Christmas lights. Love them. When I was growing up, our family always put up lights (Scott calls them the big redneck/trailer park bulbs), and our home was beautiful. My mother always made sure that my dad had them on the roof line very straight... this was important to all of us! When the hanging of lights was complete, our house looked just like a gingerbread house...

On our way home in the evenings from wherever, we would always oooh and aahhh over Christmas lights in the neighborhood. As we pulled into our driveway, my mom or dad would always say, "Oooh, look at this house. I think this is my favorite!"
One of us would promptly respond, "Me, too! Let's go see who lives here!" And so the conversation would go on until we were out of the vehicle and in our house.

When Scott and I were married, we had to make a Christmas light compromise. I gave him little white lights on the tree, and he gave me my big trailer park lights on the outside of our house. We are currently living in our 10th home in 12 years... we have only celebrated Christmas in 8 homes, though. Each year, without fail, we have put up our red and green redneck bulbs.... very straight and neat!

One night as we drove into our driveway, Hannah reminded me that I forgot to say how pretty our lights were. At that moment, I realized we were continuing the tradition from my childhood! Now, when our lights are on, some of us have a conversation about going in and seeing the family that has those nice, pretty lights on their house!

We have recently added a new Christmas light tradition to our family.... CHRISTMAS IN COTTON PLANT!

Cotton Plant, MS is about the size of Keownville... maybe a hair bit larger. Cotton Plant has something that you can't find in Keownville, though. It is the home of a personal Christmas lights display rivaling anything I have ever seen in person! Two families have turned their large yards into something worth seeing!

Out in the middle of nowhere, two families have a HUGE collection of blow up Christmas decorations. They have created a path through the display with a guard rail of lights. Amid the blow up decorations, there are displays of lights with different themes.... even one dedicated to the NA Bulldogs!

In the center of the yard, there is a huge light display that is synchronized with music. It even has these light up faces that tell jokes in between songs.... My kind of humor, too. Nothin' better than a cheesy, corny joke! The Grinch and Frosty walk around the crowd, and there is a little shack selling hot chocolate and baked goods!

What a fun night! It was a little difficult to work it into our schedule this year, but our children made it clear that this was now a full blown tradition that couldn't be missed! We look forward to seeing it again next year!