If you’re looking for a way to get out of the house after an intense period of quality time with your folks, family, siblings, or friends, there are many, many tacky light tours that will bring the hokiness of the holidays directly to your driver’s side window.
Whether it’s the “official” tour of the season or just the house at 2507 Fairview Drive, you can get a load of unbridled holiday enthusiasm that’s perhaps missing from your own holiday affair. At the very least, these tours provide conversation fodder, a source of laughter, and a reason to rejoice that it’s not you who has to untangle all those strands of lights before you toss them in the attic until next year.
- The official tacky light tour website—TackyLightTour.com—is a tacky light tour fan’s best friend. It’s searchable by area, so you can plug in Richmond or Roanoke or Alexandria, and it spins out the area’s tackiest holiday displays, perfect for the DIY-er who wants to plot their own tour. It posts 40 houses around Virginia Beach alone. Or book a holiday light tour through Virginia Executive Sedan and Limousine to marvel at the homes all dolled up for the season around Mermaid City and the Beach.
- Richmond, apparently, is a tacky light tour mecca, with a number of limo and car services offering tours throughout the holidays—from Midlothian to the Fan, Mechanicsville, the West End, and all points in between. Included is the Thompson house at 9716 Wendhurst Drive in Glen Allen. With over 180,000 lights and 1,800 homespun decorations, this cheery family has made quite a splash with their massive Christmas display. Esther Thompson and her husband, Al, spend over two months planning and building their brilliant spectacle.
- The house at 2507 Fairview Drive in Fairfax is barely visible from the road, for all the Christmas characters, decorations, and lights, lights, lights, covering every square millimeter of space. This is one homeowner with some serious holiday spirit, and rumor has it he starts decorating in September. Follow along on his Facebook page for updates. Dubbed the Farmer’s Christmas House, it’s in southern Fairfax County and has to be seen to be believed.
- In Lynchburg, the house at 76 Delaney Drive and officially called “O Christmas House,” has a light show that’s synched with Christmas carols on a radio station (92.1). It’s reputed to be one of the best Christmas light displays in town.
Plenty of public spaces that light up for the holidays, too. Dominion Energy is sponsoring both Norfolk Botanical Garden’s Garden of Lights and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s GardenFest of Lights in Richmond. They’re equally epic, with millions of lights, and they turn on even before you’ve had your first bite of Thanksgiving turkey. At Meadow Farm in Doswell, you can experience the state’s largest drive-thru synchronized Christmas light show at Illuminate Light Show and Santa’s Village. For another driveable tour, check out Holiday Lights at the Beach, which runs along Virginia Beach’s oceanfront boardwalk and features a 40’ dancing Christmas tree and a surfing Santa. If you’re looking for a nautical twist, check out the battleship Wisconsin, which gets decked out for the holidays in Norfolk.