Deck the halls with boughs of holly – and an inflatable Santa.

And colored lighting. And illuminated gingerbread men and elves.

And, for good measure, an oversize Winnie the Pooh.

It’s that time of the year, when children compile elaborate Christmas wish lists and their parents indulge their own holiday fancies: festooning their properties with lights, ornaments and all sorts of figurines.

One could reasonably estimate that nearly every other home across the region has an exterior decoration of some sort. But this being New England, most homeowners detail their land somewhat conservatively, with only a smattering of lights and displays.

Yet in almost every neighborhood, there’s a homeowner who eschews convention and outdoes those around him. Some would consider their high-wattage Christmas attractions excessive or gaudy, but these jolly souls contend they’re only furthering holiday cheer.

The Telegraph randomly chose three homes in the Nashua area that fit this bill. They set a new bar for elaboration. Why three homes? Well, there were three wise men; it seemed the wise thing to do.

“You swear, ‘This is it.’ You swear

‘No more,’ ” Lauren Monty said as she and her husband, Al, and two of their children admired their seasonal handiwork. “The (electric) meter is moving 900 miles an hour, but you see this Santa on sale, and well . . .”

Santa on a sled, the inflatable kind, this year joined lighted wreaths, candy canes and gingerbread men, among other decorations, on the Monty front yard. An inflatable Santa coming out of a small chimney sits atop the pool house in the back yard. Another new touch this year: Disney characters on a swing set, with an empty seat in the middle for humans to pose for photographs.

The Montys have four children, but this time of year they admit they’re “the biggest kids” in the family. They probably would argue they’re the biggest kids on their street, Mallard Point Drive in Merrimack.

Their neighbors, though, call them the Griswolds, a reference to the fictional family in the National Lampoon movie “Christmas Vacation.” Chevy Chase, artfully playing the Griswold paterfamilias, wants to create a Christmas to remember, and spends most of the film stumbling and bumbling as he installs a skyscraper’s worth of lighting on his home.

Repeated attempts to turn on the lights fail, but at the end of the film, he succeeds – for a brief moment. The display overloads the electric grid and the neighborhood loses power.

Al Monty, not wanting to repeat that performance, carefully maps out where every light and decoration will sit. Then on a vacation week during Thanksgiving, he painstakingly lays out the objects, working each day from breakfast to dinner.

“The challenge is getting the stuff on the roof and anchoring it, and not putting holes in the roof,” he said.

Al actually debated whether the inflatable Santas would push the family’s 14th annual festival of lights over the top. But he seemed to accept it as he inspected the yard last week.

Electricity is only a slight concern. Last year, the January bill amounted to $750. It was a small price to pay for laughter one year, when Lauren’s friend couldn’t reach the home quickly enough because of the long line of traffic admiring the lights; her friend had to desperately use the bathroom.

The Montys have a large abode to accommodate their many decorations: a huge two-story structure. Several miles away, at a small Cape tucked in between the marts of commerce on Daniel Webster Highway in Merrimack, square footage dictates the display Andre Prince can construct. But his effort, when adjusted for size, is impressive nonetheless.

His Christmas show includes an inflatable Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore on a sled, candy canes, a polar bear riding skis, an inflatable bear in winter gear, snowmen on a reindeer-pulled sled and various bric-a-brac. The showstopper is an inflatable penguin that ascends and descends on the top of an igloo.

Prince also pays mind to spacing the decorations; too much together “doesn’t look good,” he said. He hasn’t placed anything on the roof yet, his neighbor has yet to continue their customary side-by-side displays and the whole endeavor would look better with snow, Prince said. But the encouragement and thanks of passersby still makes the display a worthy task each year, he said.

The biggest show on Earth – well, maybe in this area – is at 75 Pelham Road in Hudson.

There, circus-themed animals in various holiday poses blaze a streak into the night sky. The displays, fitted with more than 110,000 light bulbs and powered by 130 amps of electricity, make Marc Mousseau and his stepfather, Paul Roy, the Barnum and Bailey of Christmas displays.

This year, the duo actually decreased the lights: Last ,year they used 140,000 in their inventory of 250,000. (The numbers are precise, because Roy computer-catalogs the items that make the home a must-see attraction.)

On any given night between Thanksgiving and Christmas, dozens of cars stop alongside the road for an audiovisual treat. Christmas songs play in sync with the movement of displays.

Each year, the family accepts donations from visitors. This year, proceeds will benefit 7-year-old Matty Dubuc of Hudson, who has liver cancer.

Mousseau wants people to know he and Roy aren’t “the only crazy” ones around. Each August, they fly to Tennessee, where scores of like-minded decorators discuss their passion at a convention.

While conceding that their work tops most other homes, Mousseau and Roy dismiss that they’ve exceeded the boundaries of good taste.

“Everybody has their theory on ‘over the top,’ ” Mousseau said. “What is over the top?”

Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And the throngs of curious who stop in the yard behold quite a celebration.

So don’t ask what the electric bill is at this home; otherwise, you’ll have to be ready to pay it, Mousseau said. Instead, enjoy an exhibit that would make Clark Griswold envious.

“It’s going to be tough to stop now,” Mousseau said.
Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832 or amckeon@nashuatelegraph.com.