The Collegian
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Richmond's Tacky Lights Tour

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For 25 years, the city of Richmond has been taking the art of Christmas decoration to a new level of tackiness. In the spirit of the holiday season, a group of families have taken on the task of decorating their houses, from lawn to roof with holiday cheer. To these dedicated Richmonders, there is no such thing as too many lights. This once informal tradition has been organized and codified, with maps, limo tours and a master list known as the Richmond Tacky Lights Tour.

According to the tour's website, the origins of Richmond's tacky viewing tradition began in 1986, when a local radio DJ rented a bus and took people on a tour of the area's wackiest and most outlandish holiday displays. Since the late 1980s, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has compiled a list of the best -- or at least most -- decorated houses in the city and surrounding counties. To be eligible as part of the tour, a house must be adorned with at least 40,000 lights. More than 60 Richmond homes qualify.

While most of the houses that participate in the tour began their extreme decorating after the tour's origins, some families have been doing this long before the creation of the "Tacky Xmas Decoration and Grand Highly Illuminated House Tour." The Phifer family in Henrico maintains one of best-known decorated houses in the area, and has done so for nearly four decades. The house consists of more than one million lights spread between two neighboring houses.

The family has been featured on a program on TLC, and in a book titled "Merry Christmas, America! Megawatt Displays Across the U.S.A." It takes more than nine weeks to set up, and adds nearly $3,000 to the family's electric bill. The Shulers are also featured in the book. The Tuckahoe family makes Christmas decorations more than just a display, by synchronizing a light show with music.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones issued an official proclamation last year that quoted BusinessWeek calling Richmond "the capital of the light universe," along with Forbes calling the city a "Christmas beacon." Bill Geist, hosting a Richmond Tacky Lights segment on CBS Sunday Morning that mentioned that proclamation, seemed to agree.

Contact reporter Ben Panko at ben.panko@richmond.edu.

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