Drive-By Party
“During the holiday season, sometimes the best thing you can give your friends and neighbors is…less.”
Practice
Pick a night. Schedule a drive-by Christmas Light party for weary friends and neighbors.
Create a map and playlist. Share your favorite lights and songs with maps and links
Prepare simple treats. Share hot chocolate, cookies, or whatever feels cozy.
During the holiday season, sometimes the best thing you can give your friends and neighbors is…less. Not a Christmas party, not even a Christmas gathering—just a few hours to pause, wrapped in a bit of lightness and brightness. That’s how our tradition of “Christmas Cheer To-Go” began.
As kids, we both grew up loving Christmas lights. One night each Advent season, we would pile into our family minivans, crank up the Carole King, and check out the best light displays in town. Now, as parents, we love seeing our kids enjoy the beauty and ridiculousness adorning homes and neighborhoods for one month each year.
Our personal taste in Christmas lights is quite diverse. We appreciate the elegant tree-lined estates in Cherry Hills Village and marvel at the substantial investment our neighbors make each year to bring beauty to their homes and share it with us. We love the light displays synchronized to music. And we even delight in the yards where the tackiest of holiday inflatables cover every square inch and defy explanation (is that Santa riding a fire-breathing dragon?).
The holiday tradition of Christmas lights began in Germany in the 1700s. Despite the fire risk, German families adorned their evergreens with actual candles (speaking of substantial investments!) each Christmas to symbolize the arrival of Jesus as the light of the world. For centuries, candles and lights have flickered in our homes and in Christmas Eve services. The intention of this tradition is to help us pause and reflect on the Light of Christ bursting into the darkness.
For us, our most common darkness in Advent has been to not pause. With four kids and an absolute slew of performances, work parties, the inevitable bout with the flu, and mostly wonderful gatherings of friends and family, we find ourselves hurried and spent. At times, we have reached Christmas Day on fumes. We love this season. And we really need a night off.
That need—and the knowledge that many of our neighbors feel the same—sparked a simple idea. We started hosting a non-party for friends who need a night in their pajamas with their people.
The practice is quite simple: We supply cookies, pretzels, and hot chocolate. We share a link to a playlist with hours of our favorite Christmas songs and a map to some of our favorite light displays in nearby neighborhoods. Our kids deliver the goods to car windows. Neighbors and friends wave, drive off, and disappear to enjoy the lights. It’s small. It’s simple. And it’s become one of our favorite ways of loving our neighbors.
It’s not an evening everyone needs, but we know some weary friends will. This season, you may find yourself needing a drive-by party. We would love to (very briefly!) see you.
Chris & Alli Horst spend their life outside of work chasing their four kids down the ski slopes, reading, hiking, and frequenting their neighborhood Trader Joes. Alli helps leaders make great hires as the CEO of Matchstick and Chris co-leads a precision metal fabrication business.
