The Tacky Light Tour is a planned route in which people travel to a series of houses that are heavily decorated with Christmas lights. It’s also a competition where different houses enter to compete for the title of the best decorated house.

The suggested route for those in Henrico is quite entertaining because the houses along it usually go all-out.  If people want to get the most out of this tour without going far away, they should go to the following houses: 9604 Asbury Court, 9625 Peppertree Drive, 9213 Holbrook Drive, 9328 Coleson Road, 1411 Pennsylvania Drive, 9716 Wendhurst Drive, 2334 Thousand Oaks Drive and 2503 Pinegrove Drive.

These seven are the closest to Glen Allen. However, one could also go to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, which is in Glen Allen, as they also compete in the Tacky Light Tour. While they don’t compete with the rest of the houses, they decorate the many plants and trees that they have there, along long with the structures.

Of course, these aren’t all of the houses decorated for the tour. The houses near Glen Allen are as follows: 2511 Pine Grove Drive, 8720 River Road, 705 Spottswood Road, and 2300 Wistar Court. The houses in nearby Mechanicsville are as follows: 8602 Anderson Court, 7396 Kelshire Trace, 8124 Kiwi Lane, 6444 Little Sorrel Drive, 7267 Marimel Lane, 10271 Matthews Grove Lane, 236 N. New Ave, 5494 Smithy Court, 8265 Softwind Court, 4233 Spring Run Road, 4371 Spring Run Road, 7703 Strath Road, 4500 Studley Road, 10288 Wanchese Way, and 6387 Wedgewood Road.

Houses that enter the Tacky Light Tour usually enter into other competitions. Last year, the Phifer family (9604 Ashbury Court), won 50,000 dollars on ABC’s game show ‘The Great Christmas Light Fight’. This isn’t the first time a Richmond house won money on that specific game show.

Two houses have “gone dark” this year: 9291 Venetian Way and 14309 Long Hill Road.  They are two well-liked houses owned by the Thedieck and Bottoms families respectively. They won’t be putting up lights this year due to unfortunate circumstances. 9291 Venetian Way won’t be competing due to a death of a family member who resided there. He was instrumental in putting up the lights. 14309 Long Hill Road isn’t competing due to heavy restrictions regarding Christmas lights being enforced within their neighborhood. Venetian Way is located in the West End and Long Hill Road is in Brandermill. The Long Hill Road house won a USA today contest a few years ago.