Come Christmas time every neighborhood has a Griswold that sets up enough Christmas lights so that his house can easily be spotted from space.
These older houses originally were built with 100 amp service. He upgraded his to 200 (as did I) with numerous electrical outlets out side to (supposedly) run power tools. Actually I think it was for Christmas purposes. When he upgraded he kept mum about it.
He had a 'keep up with the Joneses' neighbor that tried keeping up with him and the game stopped after he upgraded his power because the neighbor damned near burned his house down while trying.
The Christmas before he got his service upgraded he let the neighbor set up and then quietly hung a wreath on the door and called it good.
The following year, with 200 amp service he went crazy.
God only know what his January electric bill was. I looked at his electric meter once while he was running lights and it was spinning like a top.
As a gesture of goodwill he's shut them down when he turned in so the rest of us didn't have to buy blackout curtains left over from WW2.
As I sit here thinking about this I just cringed. This was about 15 years ago and LED lights were looming on the horizon. I wonder what it would have been like had he been able to set things up with LED lights. It most likely would have been tenfold!
Griswold passed a couple of years ago and I do miss him.
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