Christmas house light shows for feeling merry and bright

by Jamie Rhein on

In Pickerington, Ohio on Hail Ridge Drive, neighbors get together to create a computerized, animated Christmas light show that they sychronize to music. Cars line up for blocks as people wait their turn. As they creep along, they tune to a specific radio station that plays music that goes with the display.

Two years ago a friend of mine and I took our sons to see it, but once we saw the traffic, decided to park and walk. I was happy to see the Star of David and a menorah at one house. It made me think, what a great neighborhood that everyone participates in a creative outpouring of goodness. That’s how I see it anyway.

At the house towards the middle of the street we waited for Santa to make his appearance. We were told he had stepped out by his helpers who were passing out candy canes and collecting canned goods. According to one of Santa’s elves, enough cans had been donated to fill a garage.

The display is happening again this year. There are 17 houses included in what is called Picktown Lights. The show is going on through New Year’s so I think we’ll go there again. Canned goods are again being collected. Since food banks are running low this year, I hope this makes a killing.

Here are some other light displays in various parts of the U.S. that are also individual households. The most famous one is perhaps the one in Mason, Ohio. As I was looking for others on YouTube, I found its rivals. Enjoy.

1. The one in Mason, Ohio

2. Unknown location

3. Frisco, Texas

4. Brooklyn, New York

5. Another unknown location, but very relaxing. Be patient. It starts slowly

6. One from Pickerington, Ohio. This one has close-ups mixed in.

7. This one is to “Christmas Shoes,” my daughter’s favorite Christmas song. This one couldn’t be loaded, but here’s the link.

Christmas greetings from Buckingham Palace

by Abha Malpani on

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes on behind close doors at Buckingham Palace, now is your opportunity to get more than a peek: the Queen has launched her own You Tube channel!

Celebrating 50 years of the Queen’s first televised Christmas address, this year, you will be able to watch her Christmas speech on the video-sharing network. At the moment, the site opens to her Christmas talk from 1957.

Called the Royal Channel, it currently has 18 videos that go as far back as 1917 and include: the Queen Mother’s wedding (1923), Palace garden parties, her accession and coronation, her relationship with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and part one of a day in the life of Prince Charles. It’s their way of being more accessible to the youth and people around the world.

Not home videos and nothing close to reality television, it’s merely an official peek (but a peek nonetheless) into many aspects of the royal family’s life.

Infiltrating North Korea Part 17: Video Tour of Pyongyang Highlights

by Neil Woodburn on

I was a bit concerned bringing my camcorder into North Korea because I had read that zoom lenses 10X and higher were prohibited in the country. No one checked my camera on the way in, however, and I was therefore able to use my zoom throughout North Korea.

I had specifically purchased the camcorder to film the Mass Games, but ended up spending much of the trip filming simple panorama shots of downtown Pyongyang and some of the tourist sites we visited. This would have been horribly boring in most any other city, but Pyongyang is so very unique and such a rare sight, that my urban footage was some of my most interesting–at least, in my opinion.

And so today, we wind down the series (just two more posts!) with a short video collage of some of the more memorable landmarks we encountered during our stay in the North Korean capital.
The video starts with some karaoke we enjoyed one night after dinner. We then move on to a 360 degree shot of downtown Pyongyang that highlights the Arc of Triumph, the Ryugyong Hotel, the Kim Il Sung Stadium and a massive mosaic picturing Kim Il Sung addressing the masses.

We get a much closer view of the Ryugyong Hotel in the next clip which also features the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium, the city’s cylindrical ice rink, and a very long line for the bus.

And then it’s below ground to check out the extravagant, art-filled metro and wonder if the commuters are actual commuters, or simply actors pretending that the subway works.

We wrap up the video with the grandiose entranceway to the People’s Study Hall in Pyongyang that’s dominated by a massive statue of Kim Il Sung–and yes, our guides bowed deeply to the marble edifice upon entering the room. The shot immediately following is of the main lobby just up a nearby escalator where Kim Jong Il makes a smiling, Cheshire-cat appearance in an oil painting hanging on the wall. And then, finally, we fade out with the classic photos found at the front of every classroom in the Study Hall.

And that’s it. Although my cinematography skills leave a lot to be desired (it’s a new camera, folks!) I do hope that this short video has painted a much clearer picture of the world’s most mysterious and reclusive capital.

Yesterday: A Sunday Drive through Pyongyang
Tomorrow: A Tale of Two Cities

The best place for Santa to live is Kyrgyzstan

by Jamie Rhein on

Last night was Tuttle Park’s annual holiday party. Every year this small recreation center of Columbus Parks and Recreation treats kids from surrounding neighborhoods to craft projects, food treats, games and Santa. Our Bolivian friends and Japanese friends were there, as were assorted other folks who I recognized from other years.

When Santa arrived about an hour into the party with not the loudest or jolliest Ho! Ho! Ho! in the world, the outfit did it’s magic and kids clamored to get in line to tell him what he or she wants. My son said seeing Santa was the best part of the party. This is only one holiday happening Santa has to attend–never mind Christmas Eve where he has a whole lot of globe-hopping to do.

If Santa really did make the rounds on Christmas Eve, heading down chimneys and through doorways around the world to deliver gifts, according to a study by a group of Swedish engineers, he should live in Kyrgyzstan to minimize a time crunch.

These engineers have calculated the distances between various places in the world where the bulk of the world’s population live and came up with the location of the best place for Santa’s workshop. Kyrgyzstan is it. That’s much harder to pronounce and spell than the North Pole is, however, so I don’t expect this will stick any time soon. What a clever study, though. It might give Kyrgyzstan a tourist boost if they figured out a Santa theme park or something. There’s a Santa Claus, Indiana that capitalizes on Santa Claus. Why can’t there be a Santa Claus, Kyrgyzstan? I can see the CD title. Caroling with Kris Kringle in Kyrgyzstan. [via Jaunted]

On the Lonely Planet Web page on Kyrgyzstan the country is described as: “No whistles and bells, just friendly faces and some mighty big mountains.” If Santa moved here that would change. There would be whistles and bells–sleigh bells and whistles each time he rounds up his reingeer to head out. Can’t you just see the building in the photo fixed up like Santa’s workshop? Slap a few giant candy canes in front, and you’ve got the beginning of a whole new look.

New book exposes travel industry’s seedy underbelly

by Aaron Hotfelder on

I haven’t had the chance to pick it up yet, but Chuck Thompson’s new book Smile When You’re Lying is getting rave reviews from the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and International Herald Tribune, among many others. Thompson is a long-time travel writer and photographer, and he’s fed up with his editors’ insistence that every destination he visits be portrayed as an idyllic paradise– a concept he has dubbed “travel porn.”

The book’s website describes the premise as follows: “[Thompson] has had enough. Enough of the half-truths demanded by magazine editors, enough of the endlessly recycled clichés regarded as good travel writing, and enough of the ugly secrets fiercely guarded by the travel industry. But mostly, he’s had enough of returning home from assignments and leaving the most interesting stories and the most provocative insights on the editing-room floor.”

An excerpt of the book is available here, including a pretty accurate take-down of the writing in those glossy travel magazines:

“The biggest reason travel writing is dull… is that most of it is devoid of anything approaching an authentic point of view. On those rare occasions when travel writers are allowed to express an actual opinion, it must be a completely harmless one that’s also shared by the travel industry at large. These are usually offered as hard-hitting commentaries describing how “quaint” a hotel room is, how “mind-blowing” a nature park is, or how “mouthwatering” a chef’s specialty is. Everything is superlative. Like being a sports fan, one of the best things about being a traveler is complaining about the parts you don’t like-hating the Dallas Cowboys not only doesn’t make me any less a football fan, it probably makes me a more avid one. This is a concept the travel industry has never embraced.”