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CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

For the next two days, nothing about Trump and COVID-19, except that yesterday was one of the worst for the USA, with 232,342 new cases and 3401 new deaths.  The ominous development might be South Africa, now into their mid-summer, but with cases and deaths suddenly increasing.  With the UK, they have the highly infectious coronavirus. If this mutation spreads across Africa...

I was sent the following Christmas lights display from Dyker Heights in New York.  Nice, but nothing compared to other exhibits the world over.  The thought of Christmas and something extra might have started in Germany with their evergreen trees brought inside the home in the 16th century.  Poinsettias?  This idea came from Mexico, and more specifically, U.S. minister to that country, Joel Poinsett.  The British in the 18th century changed the image of the mistletoe from a poisonous plant to a festive kissing trap.

But all those lights at Christmas?  An American tradition.  After all, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and his business partner, Edward Johnson, in 1882 put out a string of 80 red, white and blue lights on a Christmas tree.  We have at least 25 of these at 15 Craigside on display. 

Here are a few worthy destination sites, starting with the Las Vegas Motor Speedway:

Chicago Zoo:

Rockefeller Center, Manhattan:

Kobe, Japan:


Shiodome, Tokyo, Japan:


Cheonggyecheon Stream, Seoul, Korea:


Kurfurstendamm, Berlin, Germany:


Red Square, Moscow, Russia:


Malaga, Spain:


Paris, France:


Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:


Medellin River, Columbia:


Garden by the Bay, Singapore:


The best I've ever seen, by far, is Orchard Road, Singapore, about a mile long:


The Christian population of Singapore is only 20%.  However, commerce is everything here.

I'm now down to #3 of my favorite songs.  At 2101 Craigside, we had a view of Honolulu City Lights for nearly three decades.  The color was bluish in the early days, but shifted to orange when the sodium vapor bulbs replaced the mercury vapor lamps.  The scene was ethereally relaxing.
Honolulu City Lights was written by Keola Beamer around 1970, and opened their album of the same name with brother Kapono.  This is my anthem of living nearly four decades at two Craigside sites.

Richard and Karen Carpenter heard this song when they were vacationing in Hawaii in 1977.  While they recorded Honolulu City Lights soon thereafter, it was not released in 1986 three years after her passage.

Tomorrow, a surprise for my favorite songs.  After all, it will be Christmas.

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