Holiday Lights!: Brilliant displays to inspire your Christmas celebration [Paperback]

David Seidman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Every December, it?s harder and harder to keep up with the Clauses. Consider the Wills home in Mendota Falls, Minnesota, where more than 150 candy canes light up the exterior of the house. Or Bull Run Park in Centerville, Virginia, which features 200 over-the-top holiday lights displays stretching over two miles. And down in Marble Falls, Texas, just about every house in town is a holiday lights extravaganza (including the place with a twirling lariat that spells out ?MERRY TEXMAS Y?ALL?) Okay, so maybe some holiday light shows get a little out of hand, but you have to appreciate the time, work, and effort (not to mention expense) that goes into installing 600,000 bulbs over a 50,000-square-foot property (as in the case of the Clot family of Pinecrest, Florida). And don?t forget the imagination and technical wizardry of homeowners who have created a school of dancing fish wearing Santa hats, or a garden of computer-controlled poinsettias that appear to grow out of the ground and blossom in glorious color, or illuminated toy trains that run on 700 feet of track.

HOLIDAY LIGHTS! is a high-wattage celebration of the wildest and most wonderful examples of a modern tradition. The 250 full-color photographs are spectacular, but don?t stop at the pictures. The accompanying essays reveal the titanic amount of hard work and dedication required to install these displays.

Make this Christmas one your family will remember forever by knitting Christmas stockings for the entire clan. The 19 fun, simple-to-follow patterns presented here make it easy for even first-time knitters to create beautiful stockings ? not to mention delightful knit and felt ornaments for the Christmas tree.

And Knit Christmas Stockings! is not only fun and easy to use, it?s also economical. With single-pattern prices from $3.50 to $9, a knitter buying 19 patterns could spend over $150! But with Knit Christmas Stockings! knitters get 19 great patterns for just $14.95.As with all the books in Storey?s die-cut Knit series, this book is written with the first-time knitter in mind. All knitting instructions are in plain English ? no esoteric terms or indecipherable abbreviations. And if a project calls for an unusual technique, the instructions are accompanied by detailed illustrations of the process.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580175082
• ISBN-13: 978-1580175081
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,188,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For what it is - a little gem, November 25, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Holiday Lights!: Brilliant displays to inspire your Christmas celebration (Paperback)

If you want something that will make you smile and shake your head in amazement and disbelief and you love a sparkly Christmas, this book is for you. Some of the decorations are beautiful, some staggering in scope and some just so much plain fun. From the ridiculous to the sublime, you can hardly get more entertainment value from the mere ten bucks or so you will pay for this book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author is insulting, May 20, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Holiday Lights!: Brilliant displays to inspire your Christmas celebration (Paperback)

I was happy to find a book about my favorite thing- Christmas lights, and ordered it right away. When I settled down to read it, I didn't like the tone the author took in his writing. Most of his verbal descriptions of the people who like to go the extra mile to beautify their homes for the holidays were offensive. He called them kooky or nuts and belittled their efforts by making everyone sound "quirky" or "obsessive". It was obvious that he felt that lighting your house in an original way was stupid.
I am glad that someone focused an entire book on the beauty of Christmas lights and the talented and clever people who decorate with them, but I wish someone else had written the book! Buy it for the pictures, and ignore the critical text.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DAZZLING AND EYE POPPING, November 16, 2004

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Holiday Lights!: Brilliant displays to inspire your Christmas celebration (Paperback)

Someone said the author belittled people in the book by calling them obsessive on the way they decorate their homes. I hate to say but the author is right. But not in a bad way. Author David Seldman provides some wonderful instructional tips and the photography is magnificent. I've looked at this book over and over again to get ideas for my own front yard.

Yes, you have to be a little obsessed when it comes to decking out your home with so many thousands of lights that the electric meter whizzes around like a top out of control. I know people like this...they begin their planning for their outdoor displays in the early fall, long before Halloween...even drawing layouts of various display items will go. I used to think it was a bit crazy until I started getting into larger displays. If you don't plan in advance you'll be sure to end up with something out of wack like having cords in the wrong place or needing more outlets.

It is obsessive but it's an obsessive love of the holidays. This book has some absolutely eye-popping displays and really gives more novice decorators like myself some fantastic ideas for my own home. I'm not going to buy a computer to control eveything, but you'll be awed by some of the elaborate displays of lights and technology that some people have.

Wonderful book!