Best Christmas House Displays in South Bay 2006?

I'm looking for input on some really awesome Christmas house displays in neighborhoods throughout the South Bay. If there's a hidden gem that you know about, please post about it here for everyone's benefit.

Attached Image
http://www.socialwave.net/userfiles/1/16891120104586f0682b4f6.jpg

Well, you may have noticed that I canceled the Winter Wonderland Bus Tour this year. I just didn't have the energy for it this year, but I'm still going out scoping out some houses at my leisure. I'm posting the best of my finds this year in the photo gallery:
http://www.socialwave.net/gallery/user/314/view_album/

Come on, you must have come across some nice houses in your neighborhood. If you spot something that might be of interest to others, please post add your photo to the 2006 album or at least post a mention of the address here in this topic.

If you're looking for spots to see, also look up the 2005 album here:
http://www.socialwave.net/gallery/user/262/view_album/

As far as I know, all but one of the houses listed in that album are up again this year. The only house that's not lit this year is 2740 Lantz Ave.

Severns-Pease Xmas Display 2006

This house features 55,000 computer controlled lights on 131 different switches that are synchronized to a holiday playlist that they're broadcasting on 104.1FM. If you drive up, you can tune in your radio to their broadcast to hear how they've timed the lights. It's the timing of the lightshow that makes this display so impressive. I haven't seen another display that has the lights timed so meticulously to music. It reminded me of the laser light shows that were so popular in the late 80's/early 90's.

We stopped by this house the other day, but idiot here forgot to bring a memory card for his camera. I'll swing by sometime this week to get a pic. This one is amazing.

Carolers will be singing at this spot on Dec 17th at 7:00pm for the added musical touch. No word on if they're going to hook the carolers into the lights to automate the show. They're collecting food and monetary donations for the Second Harvest Food Bank, so come by with a donation please.

Check their website for more info about their display.

hours: 5:30pm - 11:pm (playlist continues to 10pm weeknights and 11pm on weekends)

1168 Tangerine Way, Sunnyvale, CA
http://www.severex.com/xmas

The Mercury News has the online interactive map of some good spots. It's nice. You can just look up some spots nearby your house and go for it when you have an evening free. They also have a write-up about the twelve best displays in the South Bay.

Mercury News: Holiday Lights Map
http://mercextra.com/holiday/

Mercury News: Twelve Nights of Holiday Lights
http://www.mercurynews.com:80/mld/mercurynews/16197109.htm

I've been thinking about your tour as I drive home from work each night and enjoy the lights people have put up. It seems like a lot more houses have lights up this year on McCoy and Harriet on the Campbell/San Jose border but I haven't seen any displays worthy of stopping on a bus tour for. I used to live on Vallejo Drive off San Tomas Aquino in West SJ and there was a massive display on STA but the owners sold the house and moved away a couple of years ago. I haven't driven through Vallejo this year but last year a bunch of houses had lots of lights up. While it's nice, there's another house in a different neighborhood that I won't name but it really just looks like lights barfed on it.

i just posted five pictures of houses in our area, off of Santa Teresa Blvd. The pictures aren't high quality digital, but look pretty good and give an indication of what's there.

QUOTE (mobyfan @ Dec 13 2006, 12:12 AM)

I used to live on Vallejo Drive off San Tomas Aquino in West SJ and there was a massive display on STA but the owners sold the house and moved away a couple of years ago.

There's a rather nice two house display off of Vallejo. It's the one you told me about last year. I didn't stop to shoot it this time around, but from a casual glance, it appeared to be mostly the same as last year. It's worth a visit.

I was going to take the bus through a different route this year. There are plenty of houses worth stopping at. The hardest trick has been planning a route that allows you to see a lot of "appetizer light displays" on the way to the main dish.

Mikki, you may be interested in checking out San Anselmo Dr. It's waaay down off of Santa Teresa, near the Morgan Hill area, but there's one house that's well worth it and the houses near it aren't too shabby either. Plus there's also a fun railroad display open till 8:30/9:00pm in the Tea Garden neighborhood.

Thanks for posting those pics!

I went through the Sunnyvale / Santa Clara area last night checking out some of the stops. I posted some pics from that jaunt in the 2006 Lights album. All of them were sites listed by the Mercury News in their Twelve Nights of Holiday Lights article. All of them are nice displays, but many of them aren't worth going out of your way to find.

I've got a route map that will take you through to most of the displays in the Sunnyvale/Santa Clara area. If anyone's interested, I'll clean it up and post it online. I'm going to be going through again tonight and plan to clean up the route a little bit to take out some of the stuff not worth the detour.

Yes, we would be interested in your route map. It will make it easier to view the really great places.

Ok, here's my tour route for 2006... the extended remix version. If you do the entire tour, allow yourself about 2-3 hours to get through it. If you take long stops, it could get longer.

Please trace this out on a map before you get in your car. There'll be a lot distracted drivers searching for some nice eye candy and its best if you really know where you're going so you can keep your head up. Needless to say, keep your eyes on the road if you're doing the driving. At some of these places, you'll find people wandering out into the street.

* - a site worth getting out of your car for

- Start at 2387 Adele Ave, Mountain View*
- Take Adele to Thompson Ave. (West)
- Thompson Ave. to Central Expwy
- Take Central Expwy to Mary Ave. (East - a few miles down the road)
- Exit on Mary Ave. to the Right and turn Right on Mary
- Continue down Mary Ave. After passing El Camino Real, look for Remington Ave.
- L onto Remington
- R onto Plum (First Right)
- Plum will turn to the left
- L onto Pome Ave.
- R on Sheraton Dr. (First Right)
- 757 Sheraton Dr., Sunnyvale
- Sheraton and Hollenbeck
- Continue on Sheraton Dr. to Spinosa Dr.
- R on Spinosa
- L Templeton (First Left)

Tune your FM radio to 104.1 and turn R onto Tangerine

- 1164 + 1168 Tangerine Wy., Sunnyvale*
- Continue down Tangerine Wy.
- L on Utica Dr.
- Utica Dr. curves left and becomes Tilton Dr.
- R on Remington Ave.
- R on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Rd.
- Go down Saratoga-Sunnyvale Rd. past El Camino Real
- L on Harwick Wy (Second Streetlight past El Camino Note: same street is named Alberta going the other direction)
- L on Bitten Dr.
- R on Dunholme Way
- R on Blackhawk
- L on Inverness
- R on Crow Ct., Sunnyvale (loop in and out)
- Come back out from Crow Ct. and make a R on Inverness
- L on Wolfe Rd.
- R on El Camino Real
- Go down El Camino Real past Lawrence Expwy.
- L on Calabazas Blvd
- R on Taper Ave.
- 2976 Taper Ave., Santa Clara
- Continue on Taper Ave.
- R on Andrea Pl.
- L on Warburton Ave.
- R on Bowers Ave.
- Continue on Bowers Ave. past Homestead Rd.
- L on Barcells Ave (First Left after Homestead)
- R in and out of Layton Ct., Santa Clara
- Coming out of Layton Ct. continue straight ahead to Homestead Rd.
- R on Homestead Rd.
- Take Homestead past San Tomas Expwy
- R on Los Padres Blvd.
- 375 Los Padres Blvd, Santa Clara*
- Continue down Los Padres Blvd to Pruneridge Ave.
- L on Pruneridge Ave.
- R on Winchester Blvd.
- L onto Hwy 280
- Exit onto Merdian Ave. South
- Continue on Meridian Ave to Willow St.
- L on Willow St.
- L on Glen Eyrie Ave (Third left)
- Giant Reindeer, Willow Glen (San Jose)
- After the giant reindeer, R on Camino Ricardo
- L on Willow St.
- R on Lincoln Ave.
- R on Minnesota Ave.
- L on Newport Ave.
- R on Pine Ave.
- L on Cherry Ave.
- Robsheal + Cherry Ave. Willow Glen (San Jose)*
- R on Robsheal Dr.
- L on Hicks Ave.
- R on Dry Creek Rd.
- L on Meridian Ave.
- R on Hillsdale Rd.
- Hillsdale Rd. becomes Camden Ave.
- 3579 Taper Ave at Camden Ave, San Jose (Across the Street from Cambrian Park Plaza Shopping Center)
- Continue on Camden Ave. past Hwy 17 overpass
- Camden Ave. becomes San Tomas Expwy
- Take Winchester Blvd. North exit
- Continue on Winchester Blvd to Budd Ave.
- L on Budd Ave
- L on Nido Dr.
- 595 Nido Dr., Campbell Park in the shopping center parking lot and walk in. Sign the guestbook, drop off food/money for 2nd Harvest, and pitch in a few bucks to Debi to help cover the electricity bill.