Christmas Lights

[Mikey]

A friend lives in a neighborhood that goes all out with Christmas lights.  We were at a party at their house tonight and after eating way too much we went for a stroll through the neighborhood.  These photos in no way does it justice but you will get the idea.  I dumped about 30 photos because they were blurry.  Hundreds of homes are decorated in this manner.  Our friends hire a carriage pulled by two draft horses to take guests through the neighborhood.  Fun ride....but it smelled horsey 


















The pillars in the photo below are palm trees.






The house below changed colors like a chameleon.  I only got two colors because the other photos were too blurry.

[mascot]

Too much Eggnog Mikey?  Did the houses/lights look blurry through your eyes too? 

[Jerry]

Is that Al Gore's house?

[Mikey]

Too much Eggnog Mikey?

LOL!  I won't tell......

[mascot]

I saw this while surfing this afternoon....cracked me up!

[karen J]

Is that Al Gore's house?

Nope. Al Gore's house is bigger! 

Mikey, thanks for the pics! Love 'em all. Some good ideas there, too...

[Johns]

Great pictures Mikey!

Got back thursday from cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman.  Really weird to see christmas decorations in the tropics.  Attached pic is from Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  Note the bow and Santa on the "Taj Mahal" shopping area.



Somehow, it just didn't "feel" like Christmas, regardless of the decorations, which seemed strangely out of place.....

[Julles]

those lights are really something, Mikey!  I'm going to refer back to this thread from time to time - just fun to see the lights.

I spent yesterday in Old Towne Spring, which is a "quaint" shopping destination 40 or so miles north of here.  The place is full of what I call "pot pourri shops" - the kind with gift items and sweet frilly stuff that only ladies know what to do with.  It is a Holiday tradition that gets me in the Christmas mood. 

Then I went looking at lights, in a neighborhood similar to the one above, where they actually have written into their deed restrictions that they MUST participate in the holiday lights display.  Sometime soon, I'm going the opposite direction to another neighborhood (a rather poor neighborhood, BTW) that has even better lights to see.

I remember being in the Carribean (Windjammer Cruisses, rest in peace) over Thanksgiving, and seeing Santa Clause come to the island.  And, yes, lights and plastic light-up Santas all over the place.  Odd, true, but so much WARMER and COMFY than up here in brrrr land.

[Jonna]

You do realize that Bethlehem is in a temperate climate, no snow on the baby Jesus when he was born.  All this snow and reindeer and fat guys in wooly red suits comes from Germany and northern Europe, nothing at all like the birthplace of Christianity.  Even here in the tropics they hang fake icicles and snowflakes as decoration, along with camels and Bedouin kings and all the rest of the middle eastern stuff.  It makes no sense to me and I'm very happy that it doesn't.   Feliz Navidad. 

[Julles]

What's even weirder is that the real birthdate of Jesus was actually some time in the summer. 

I forget now, why they chose to use December to celebrate his birthday.

[Jerry]

The typical Santa that we know and love was from a Coca Cola advertisement.

It sure became the standard for Dept. Store Santa's to live up to.  Not an easy task.  It was some super art.

[Mikey]

Hey Santa.  Mrs. Claus just told me to tell you to quit screwing around and get busy helping the Elfs with those toys....

[Julles]

Santa in a pool hall?

He has an odd familiarity about him ... .... 

[MikeW]

We also did crazy Christmas stuff in South Africa Jonna. Not only do we have the exact same climate as California, Christmas also comes right in the middle of the summer.

But yes, cards with snow scenes, fake snow, and all the Northern European trappings.

Some years we ate in the formal trappings of the dining room, and some years we just had everything taken out poolside, and dined in our swimwear.

Cheers,

Mike

[Jonna]

It's funny how snow and cold have become linked to Christmas.  Growing up in SoCal my one real Christmas tradition was to go to the beach.  Some years it was cold and gray but many years we'd take off the wet suit and work on our tan.  I still feel like I have to go to the beach on Christmas day, I'll probably just take the dogs out to the Gulf beach this year and let them romp although I may take my suit and have a swim too.  It's warming up today and hopefully there will be a long run of hot weather before the next norte.

[Julles]

I think that Christmas in the summer would be weird.  Mainly because, to me, Winter is the end of the year (probably because I hate it so, all the cold and gloom), and because we enter the New Year right after Christmas.

And Christmas (or Hanuka, Rhamadan, Solstice, etc.) are like the Grand Culmination Climax of the year.  There is no other holiday that has as much fanfare or whoopla as Christmas - not Easter, not Thanksgiving, not the Fourth of July, and not even, sorry to say, Jerry's birthday.

So it's just fitting to me, that the grandest holiday of the year comes at the end of the year, so we have something to look forward to and build up to, before we start all over again in a fresh new year.

[Ky Kim]

How amazing. They have really put some hours and thought into it. Thanks for sharing them, my daughter enjoyed them too.

Kim