Many people in the last few days have sent me a link to this picture from failblog of the “Ditto” house:

It’s great, isn’t it? I take it the photo is real. (What? This is a blog. If you think I’m gonna take 10 minutes to Snopes this thing out, you’ve got another thing coming.) If you live next to a Trykoski-like level of perfection and exuberance, why not just simply show your assent? People like the tongue-in-cheek idea behind the Ditto neighbor’s thinking: Why fight it? But also, why knock yourself out matching it?

Based on everything I know about Christmas lights displays (even now that would amount to “not a heckuva lot,” although I have been to the Texas Christmas Lights club’s convention and sat through a couple days of seminars), Ditto’s neighbor spent at least a full day installing his lights, if he had help from friends; depending on where he buys his stuff, he spent several hundred dollars or more. And if these lights are sequenced to dance to music and all that? Then we’re talking weeks if not months of planning and programming.

“Ditto” looks a a whole lot easier — and steals the show! Sometimes snark wins.

In the case of the Trykoskis — at least in the last three Christmases since I started hanging out there — it’s interesting to note that the rest of the cul-de-sac on Bryson Drive has far fewer lights on their homes, and a few have none at all. There was a row of small, lighted candy-canes next door one year; as I recall, one house across the street is usually trimmed in non-blinking red outdoor lights, and the entrepreneurial kids who live there sold hot chocolate one night to passengers in cars waiting to watch the Trykoski house. (And yes, there is one house that wishes they didn’t live so close to the Trykoskis, but they also probably know better than to, um, go on the record with that.)

Immediately around the corner, a couple neighbors combined property lines for a big display of airblowns. But Jeff and Bridgette’s house is definitely the neighborhood show-stopper. (It’s the whole town’s show stopper, actually — with notable stops in other subdivisions, and of course, Frisco Square.)

The Ditto house reminds me of a wonderful tale I heard about a house in Richardson, another Dallas suburb: There was a house on one street that was all Griswold-ed out — Santa and the reindeer on the roof, giant manger scene on the lawn, strobe lights, thousands and thousands of blinking lights, spot lights, the whole thing.

And the owner of the house next door? Fashioned a giant question mark made of blue lights and hung it above his own garage. Perfect.