My parent's neighborhood gives out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards for Christmas decorations every year. But who is this committee? They don't speak for me! Jenna and I decided we wanted to give our own awards.

We drove around and took notes on houses we wanted to commend, but nothing we came up with really clicked. Everything was either too mean or plain not funny. In the meantime, we stole some of those annoying home builder signs cleaned up our community by picking up some litter off the side of the road in anticipation of our prank. Time was running out and we were about to lose our window of opportunity. Then one night Jenna jokingly proposed we give Participation Awards to houses that had put up lights but hadn't won. That was it! We couldn't award several hundred houses on such short notice, but we could award the other houses on the streets where the official winners resided. We drove around taking notes and estimated we would need 21 signs. We immediately got to work. Jenna and Jordan whitewashed the signs...

...while I labored over the stencils. This is Futura Bold, my friends! It's the favorite font of some pretty swell filmmakers: Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson to name a few!

Sarah and Richard stopped by and were promptly put to work.

The signs looked rather stark with text only, so Jenna designed a holly stencil that really spruced them up.

Sarah came up with the idea to give an award for "Best Clubhouse." Of course, there is only one clubhouse in the neighborhood, right at the front of the subdivision. Jenna made the stencil with that lovable font: Comic Sans!

Ten cans of paint later, we had finished the signs!

As soon as they were dry, we piled the signs into two cars. Alex would drive Jenna and Jordan to Foxbriar (home of the 1st place winner) and I would drive Richard and Sarah to Friar Lake (home of the 2nd place winner). Then we would meet back on our street (home of the 3rd place winner) and distribute the rest of the signs.

Our group was also in charge of the Best Clubhouse sign. There are only a few action shots because, come on, who has time for photos when you're in action?

Everyone made it back without any problems and we planted the last of the signs. My parents got one too! We felt positively mischievous.

The next morning I went around to take photos of the signs in the award winners' lawns because I wasn't sure how many would be up later that day. A strong wind had blown through that night and knocked several of them down, but many were still standing.

Some award winners were really excited about their signs.

That evening I grabbed some night shots. Many of the signs that had been blown over were now standing up again! The award winners had not thrown them away but were proudly displaying them!

This was my favorite house we awarded. Flying reindeer?! Rad.

Everyone on my parent's street loved the signs and had their own theories about where they had come from. It was great to listen to them blame everyone but us. I didn't get to hear the reactions of residents of the other streets, but I'm guessing they were equally as positive. The Christmas Lights Participation Award anti-prank was a success!

There are more photos on my Flickr account in the Christmas Lights "Participation Award" Anti-Prank set and tagged "Participation Award".

And, if you liked this, you might also enjoy the holiday shenanigans Jenna and I pulled last year with our Parking Lot Note Anti-Prank.