Celebrating Christmas In The Ideal Small Town - Part 1

I was already in the village of Canton and admiring its small town charm when I decided to take a driving tour of the Christmas decorations there. Canton is perhaps the nicest, cleanest, most liveable small town I've ever seen, a wonderful place to live with several large universities. Most of the homes were, by my standards, decidedly upscale and I concluded that the wages (largely government and university employers) were higher than the surrounding area and the property prices were comparatively low. Like I said, a nice place to live:

I began driving up and down residential streets, looking for Christmas decorations to photograph:

To my surprise, there were few decorations, perhaps only one out of every thirty homes - and most of those were dignified, simple and understated:

The homes were lovely and the decorations, not the gaudy type I was used to, were lovely as well:

The day was foggy and the fog was freezing to many surfaces. It was sometimes difficult to get usable photos, but I managed:

An Adirondack moose with red bow:

A walkway lined with red and green lights:

A sled, a red door, a wreath and a snowman:

Red Christmas bows and a small Santa:

I was impressed by how well kept all the homes were. If there are any slums in Canton, I didn't find them:

I stopped and parked when I came to the footbridge crossing the Grasse River. It leads to the State University campus on the other side, though I didn't walk it this time:

This florist shop in a house in a residential neighborhood was doing a booming business, perhaps drawn in by the Santa who stood at the curb and waved at everyone passing by. He was on the porch when I got there, but you can still see him. There were more places to see on this driving tour, and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: