On Christmas Eve night Mark and I walked around the Halifax Public Gardens, which was lit up for Christmas. It was a freezing and windy night, and on two occasions gusts blew sand from the footpaths into my eyes. I had to stop and let my binocular Niagara flush my eyes out. We kept ourselves warm with hot chocolate that I had brought along.
We drove to Connaught Avenue and Jubilee Road where every year the enormous historic houses in that area are lit up beautifully. Several homes had huge real trees on their upper porches, and I felt that they had to have used a crane to get them up there as they surely couldn’t have carried them into the house up narrow stairways and through small doors. Two homes in particular, owned by brothers, are over-the-top in their lights and lawn decorations.
Outside theatre with “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on a constant loop. Note the Peanuts characters skating on a rink underneath the screen.
This house, located between the two brothers’ houses, had a light show programmed into the swaying fringe.
Neighbouring house where Santa and his reindeer are about to set off to visit another house. A Santa hologram in the attic window (top left of photo) peered out to the onlookers, surprising children with his surreptitious activity. When we returned to the area on December 26, the Santa hologram had been removed and replaced by a set of lit candlesticks in the window. The homeowner obviously intended to show the Santa hologram only on Christmas Eve night, so children could catch him in the act.
Christmas morning in Bedford
We took an afternoon drive to look at some new housing developments in Bedford. On the way back to Mark’s sister Patsy’s house we stopped to look at one enormous house, apparently two houses in fact connected by a garage. From the construction site you can see where ice is forming in the Bedford Basin:
As we pulled into Patsy’s driveway one of my favourite songs came on the Christmas radio station so we stayed in the car, bopping and snapping away to “Jingle Bells” by the Ray Conniff Singers:
Late Christmas night we drove and walked around the Shore Drive area to look at all the Christmas lights.