Holiday Decor Contest

Www.houstonpress.com and Hypercon, Inc. present "Christmas
(Holiday) Cards From the Edge" Gallery & Showcase. Enter your own Card! Win a Polaroid camera and some film! With more prizes to come.

Ah, the crisp chill in the air, the green and red buildings downtown, the twinkling lights on all the houses, the candles in the window, the giant, life-sized plastic reindeer playing poker with all the other giant, life-sized plastic reindeer in your neighbor's front yard ... hey! Wait a minute! Not only do signs of the holidays seem to come earlier every year, they seem to get ... er, weirder. More commercial. Hell, let's just say it: They get tackier. And we want to celebrate! Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Staff photographer Phillippe Diederich will present a new image every week, starting right after our Thanksgiving issue, through Christmas. That's a lot of holiday cheese. Uh, cheer. But still, we know we'll only be scratching the surface of inspired decoration, which is where you come in.

See something that catches your eye as either very special or very unusual? Send it to us right away. We want to showcase all the glorious, kitschy, neon-lit delights of your neighborhood, and ours.

Just send us your black-and-white or color photos and we'll be picking the best for our web site, www.houstonpress.com, in a special feature section called "Christmas Cards From the Edge." We're offering Christmas Cards From the Edge prizes, including a Polaroid camera with film, to whoever sends in the image that best captures that commercial (if not sincere) holiday spirit.

And, thanks to internet services provided by Hypercon, Inc., it will be possible to go on-line and send these cards to others through the wonders of e-mail.

Send photos (nonreturnable) to Liz Belile, On-line Editor, 1621 Milam, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77002. Or e-mail your jpegs or gifs (up to 50K) to Daren Lunsford, On-line Design Director, at dlunsford@houstonpress.com

Stay tuned to www.houstonpress.com for details and prizes.