One of the best parts about the holidays is driving around neighborhoods at night to see rows of houses all decked out in lights and animatronics. Such intense decorating comes at a price, as even those of us who just put up a Christmas tree and call it a day know—but how much, exactly?
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Some New York companies that focus on Christmas decor put that number for 1 percenters at as much as $35,000, which can cost more than a year of tuition at a private university and is definitely more than a four-year public university (average in-state tuition is about $9,139 a year). None
And we're not even talking about the electricity bill.
Joseph Manieri of Distinctive Holiday Displays have put up hand-painted figurines and animatronic skating penguins after a Brooklyn family requested their house sport Bloomingdale-worthy holiday windows.
Manieri told New York Post that another customer just said, "I want it to be like 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'—something that will blind all my neighbors."
From 6-foot-tall gingerbread models of the Rockefeller Center to turning a sprawling apartment into an enchanted forest of thirty 15-foot trees, the possibilities are endless when you have the money to burn. Why would you get up on the roof in the cold and dark to secure lights when you don't have to, right?
Photograph by: Holiday Installers
