Crazy as this city is normally, at Christmas we really like to go all out. As any New Orleanian knows, the Yuletide season is just another reason to have a party, bring together those large Catholic families for marathon food fests, and take the kids out to look at all the Christmas lights.

We do seem to have a tradition of spiffing up our neighborhoods for Christmas in an unusually big way. New Orleanians crave spectacles more than your average city-dweller, something to do with our addic...