The dancing lights at 5406 Fremont Street, Springfield is the top rated favorite on Holly’s Tacky Christmas Lights. Photo by Abigail Constantino/The Connection
Being listed in Holly’s Tacky Christmas Lights website is no dubious honor. For some houses, it is an actual honor to be included in the list Holly Zell has kept up since 2001. “They are tacky not in the sense of that word. To me they are beautiful,” said Zell, of Fairfax. Tacky is the name she started the site with and the name has stuck. Her love of Christmas lights started when she was a child. Gazing at Christmas lights was something she and her mother did.
The site lists houses in Virginia and now Maryland, where Zell lives part-time. But there are many houses listed, complete with detailed descriptions of the light decorations, in Fairfax, Springfield, Annandale and Alexandria.
Zell knows some of the owners, especially those who have decorated grandly over the years. Owners even submit their houses for inclusion, said Zell. Karen Sherman, of Springfield, has been coming to see the lights at 8700 Nanlee Drive in Springfield for about five years. The house’s lights are her daughter Isabella’s, 6, favorite this year.
Cyndi York, of Springfield, brought along William, 10, and Benjamin, 8, to look at the top voted favorite at 5406 Fremont Street in Springfield. They have seen three so far in one night, thanks to the list from Zell’s website.
The website also tells gawkers to respect the homeowner’s privacy with warnings to maintain their distance and not trespass in the display. In turn, owners whose displays have musical accompaniments instruct people to tune in to a particular radio station to watch the lights dance to the music.
There is only one category to be included in the list, which is Zell’s way of sharing the joy of Christmas, “They have to knock my socks off,” she said. “When I turn around the corner and see the lights, I have to be grinning from ear to ear.”
To take a tour, visit http://www.fairfaxchristmaslights.com/. A map is available on the website.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, where Zell works, recently looked at data from the Suomi NPP satellite and found that patterns in light intensity change during major holidays seasons. Zell’s images were used in some of the illustrations.
For more information on the NASA finding, visit http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/satellite-sees-holiday-lights-brighten-cities/#.VJEKSWTF_nU.