Christmas Lights Etc. classifies homeowners who decorate their landscapes with holiday lights and more as either light users, heavy users or enthusiastic users. A new smart phone app has been developed to help guide spectators to the enthusiastic houses and neighborhoods in their area.

As Christmas pastimes go, those of us who reside in suburban areas often count the nighttime tradition of searching through neighborhoods for dazzling displays of lights and holiday spectacles as one of our favorites.

In my immediate locale, we exude quite a festive spirit with most of the modest houses tapping the power lines for a little extra juice throughout the season. The efforts range in scale and quite honestly some of the more reserved are lovelier than some of the more flamboyant.

But there is one street – we simply call it the Christmas street – that really taxes the electric grid. And even though ostentatious, it is awesome. Something akin to the Vegas Strip at night, it is the type of scene that makes it a prized destination in a holiday light crawl.

We return every year and always bring our visiting family and friends no matter how many times that they might have been there. We typically spend close to an hour walking around, pointing out our traditional favorites, marveling at new additions, and chatting with fellow spectators and the impresarios of the show, who welcome the attention.

When I would brag to coworkers about the street, I often was met with returned crowing, as many would have a similar street in their neighborhood. And often I would vow to visit it the following Christmas but time and memory would fade that promise.

But what if there was a way to catalogue local spectacles for easy referencing and discovery during nocturnal light-seeing sojourns.

Well there is. As recently reported by Jonah Bromwich in the New York Times, a homemade app called Christmas and Holiday Light Displays is now available for this purpose.

It was created by Greg Walters, of Lone Tree, Colo. and allows users to geotag the location of any holiday display, (hopefully this function will be reserved for the truly eye-boggling ones). The second function on this unadorned tool allows users to view a map of the chosen displays in their community.

It works, with some reported glitches, on iOS 4.0 or later. So download the app to upgrade your holiday tradition or start a new one. In the true spirit of Christmas - it's free.