Candy Cane Lane
I went home for Chrissy, and a few of my peeps suggested that we go see the Christmas Lights. I was down. It turned into a wonderful little excursion like those I remember from childhood, but the game has changed so much. There’s a competition every year for the best street for Christmas lights (likely including decorations and general atmos-cheer). When I was a kid, the best one was quite close to where I grew up, but now it was a bit of a drive away, on a street ostensibly nicknamed Candy Cane Lane. Maybe it moves every year. Maybe the competition is fierce and people go into massive debt for the best stuff. Maybe people passive-aggressively coerce all of their neighbours to participate. Maybe they sabotage other streets with caltrops and burning sulphur. Sorry, I got a little carried away there. All I saw was the nice, shiny side of it; the subtext was just my imagination.
My party slowly sauntered along the street, teeming with merry visitors, while we gazed at the very varied and creative scenes. Some had blow-up decorations. Some had choreographed lights. Some were overloaded with extra extra. There were even vendors with hotdogs and fairy floss (which might look fun in kids movies but quickly became a sticky, drippy mess on this hot evening). The whole ambience was like a small carnival. I think our favourite was the Santa Grinch dude standing outside has garage for the sole purpose of posing for photos.
I know that people do this stuff in the US but I’m not sure if they work together as a whole street or if they just go solo and try to outdo their neighbours. I’d doubt we spend as much as them on this stuff, and a real white Christmas is a sheer impossibility, but from what I saw, we gave it a good crack. Either way, the Wizards of Winter was the original video that blew me away and I still admire it.
Links:
– Wizards in Winter (gets epic after 2 mins) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJrY3p9nzVY
– Now with drone footage – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnL0_CsXncI
Carpe Urbe 