Lawn People Holiday Lights Decorating Families Ornaments Displays

In the United States, many families celebrate Christmas and New Year's Day by stringing outdoor lights around their houses. Although many non-Christian families also do this, people of other religions may not. These strings of lights can be all one color, or a mixture of red, blue, green, and yellow. The lights are usually strung along the roof, around doors and windows, and sometimes around trees in the "front lawn" (the grass-covered area in front of a home). Sometimes people use lawn ornaments that have lights, too. Popular lawn ornaments include Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen, and stars. Other people prefer to display Christian lawn ornaments that relate to a "nativity scene" or a scene showing the birth of Jesus in the Christian religion, and includes the baby Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph.

Some families compete with their neighbors to have the biggest or most beautiful "lawn displays" or the group of objects they place in front of their homes for other people to see. For this reason, the best lawn displays are often found near one another and some neighborhoods become well known for their lawn displays. Often local newspapers provide lists of these neighborhoods so that people can drive through those neighborhoods at night to enjoy the lawn displays.

Some cities and towns organize larger displays during the weeks before Christmas. During the day, they have holiday parades. At night, they often have "light shows" (moving, colorful lights decorating the lawn ornaments). The people who come to these displays usually buy holiday food, such as Christmas cookies and peppermint candy, and drinks, such as hot chocolate and "apple cider" (hot apple juice with cinnamon and other flavors). The money that cities earn from these sales is usually used for social projects.