As it comes to close, lots of talk about 2016 being a jinxed year – Prince & David Bowie die, Gord Downie has cancer, Brexit, Trump wins and more.
There’s still a week left so who knows what else will happen but now you’ve got one of the bestselling artists of all-time (both as a single artist and group) and writer of a modern Christmas classic dying on Christmas Day.
Like a lot of parents, Shea and I struggle with how to make sure that our kids (especially Pace now that he’s getting older) understand that Christmas is not just about getting gifts but also about giving.
Other years we’ve done things like put toys in Santa Anonymous Bins or other charitable giving. But this has always been done in a very piecemeal fashion and didn’t always involve the kids either.
This year, we decided to do it in a more formal way – we told Pace that we were going to give him $100 to donate and that he could pick both the charities and the amounts.
After some discussion and guidance about possible charities and why they made sense, Pace decided to split the $100 into five $20 donations.
He decided to donate to:
Regina Open Door Society because he has classmates from Syria who likely benefited from the good work of RODS over the past year.
Saskatchewan Diabetes Association because both maternal grandparents are diabetic and also because his mom moved to a job as a diabetic educator in the past year.
STARS because the son of a family friend who rents his grandpa’s farm land benefited from STARS air ambulance this past year.
Did we reach him? Well, when we were done, he said “Can I go back to my movie now?” But perhaps we’ve planted the seed for another family holiday tradition?
Thanks to the good folks at SparkleTour.ca, it’s super-easy for anyone in Regina to plot out a tour of some of the best light displays our city has to offer – you can find the ones nearest you or, as we did tonight, plot a route to all of the ones that have achieved a coveted *golden star* rating on the site for going above and beyond in their pursuit of Griswold-esque Christmas Light Excellence. 😉
We didn’t stop at one of the best – Candy Cane Lane – as we’d been before other years so decided to focus on other highly regarded ones we hadn’t visited already.
As well, I wasn’t taking notes so the addresses on the odd one below might be mistaken (we went to 5550 NW Blvd – is it in one of the pics below?)
Finally, every sleigh driver needs a good navigator so kudos to my dear wife for working Google Maps, having SparkleTour.ca open in her browser and still managing to take in most of the lights too! 😉
Here’s my mini-reviews…
3415 Cherry Bay – I believe this is the home of the folks behind SparkleTour.ca so they get bonus points for sharing their love of Christmas with the entire city (and province – the site has many cities listed besides Regina!)
3414 Phaneuf Cres – Hands down, the best display in Regina IMHO – lights synced to music (which you can hear through an FM transmitter if it’s too cold to have your window down), a computer-controlled, homemade candy cane dispenser, a console where kids can control some lights themselves, an owner who brings you treats at your car (seriously?) a drop box that accepts donations to the Cancer Society. I spent a large chunk of time just talking to the house owner about his background (surprisingly not IT or Engineering – said he’s a data analyst), the system he’s created (I can’t remember all specs but about how many lights he has, how the six control boxes work, how he creates the synchronized shows literally picking which lights flip on second-by-second in each song and much more – I think he said an hour is spent for every minute of music synchronization or something crazy like that.) Absolutely amazing!
Another view of 3414 Phaneuf Crescent…
1914 E. Dunnison Cres – I’m a sucker for lights that have that multi-coloured “strobe” effect and this house was great for that.
2808 Abbott Road – inflatables!!! Unfortunately on a very narrow road so this was the only one where we had to squeeze to the side to let an ongoing car squeeze past us going the other way! (I wonder if Regina Police Services keeps stats on how many accidents happen outside these Christmas Light Houses? We regularly see people pulling u-ies in front of the house near us on Sangster – which is a busy street to begin with, people jockey for parking spots in front of all these houses and we even had one home owner walk in front of our van just as we were about to pull away – how dare they!) 😉
1624 Capitol Road – down in Whitmore Park, close to where Shea and I first met. <smooch>
709 Wascana Street – pulled up at the same time as the CTV News Truck. Shea had seen them by another house on Sangster (see below) when she got home from work so they must be doing a story on the best light shows in the city. Briefly thought about just following them but thought that was a bit creepy! 😉
19 Champ Crescent – we didn’t stop at “Candy Cane Lane” this year but here’s a photo from a previous year. This one’s accepting donations to the food bank, let’s you walk through the front and backyard and is good “bang for your buck” as many others in the neighbourhood are approaching “gold star” status as well!
5803 Ehrle Crescent – in terms of “volume” of decorations and how much of the yard was covered, this house might take the cake.
675 Sangster Blvd – a personal favourite as this house is only a block and a half from where we live so we can walk to it when the weather’s nice, we drive by it every time we take our son to his parkour class (4x a week back and forth) and since the owners have a projection of Mr. & Mrs. Claus in the window, Sasha thinks that she lives within walking distance of “Santa’s house”. 🙂
[Edit: Here’s our feeble contribution – I think we’ve got a ways to go before I can even be added to the SparkleTour site let alone be given a gold star! I added some red lights on the patio after this photo was taken and have a goal to make the lights reach the top of the tree in front of our house someday! If the third window from the left was open, you’d also see our tree which adds to the effect in my humble opinion!]
This is a fitting song for my last Melancholy Christmas Music Monday post this month – both for the sad lyrics but also how its being performed in front of and indirectly evoking Barack Obama (and heck, if you squint, even the “Christmas of white” could be a reference to Trump’s support among white working class/white supremacists”.
“Won’t be the same/If you’re not here with me” indeed. 🙁
