Shortly after I moved to the Bay in 2007, we were excited to get out the lights and decorate the house for Xmas. Our bill was $1,200 that month. We had a lot of lights, but usually ran them in Oklahoma, where electricity is much, much cheaper. No tiered pricing either.
A watt is about a buck a year, so 12 months/year times 1200/month is about 14.4 kilowatts, thats over 120 amps average load, or maybe 240 amps worth of blinkie lights. I find that unlikely to be christmas lights.
It looks like you're using national average electricity pricing of about 10 cents per kwh. In California there's a tiered pricing schedule; the more you use the more it costs -- up to a max of around 500% in Jan 2007.
With this in mind his load is closer to 24A. Seems entirely reasonable for 2007 with incandescent strings. I remember tripping 20A breakers with incandescent lights and having to run lines from different circuits in my childhood.
Yup, incandescent strings, reindeer, bush blankets, you name it. It looked like Xmas threw up on our house. I've tripped breakers before.
I would also note our bill at that house ran $400-500 when "normally cold", which I should have mentioned in my post and which only occurs here a few months of the year. Still, we were shocked and it was a lot of lights!
Grow lights and decorated the house with "greenery" for christmas? Sorry, read news too often about pot plantations and their high electricity consumption...
