I must admit I was dead tired on Monday night and after a failed nap and stressing about Christmas the whole time I reeeeally didn't want to go. I had, however, promised myself and the kids that we'd go check out the Christmas lights.
A dear friend of mine sent me a video marking out all the houses and streets that were really worth visiting and most of them were a stones throw away!
So we all piled into the car, totally forgetting about supper, at about 8h30pm. Now remember, in SA, there was always the occasional house that went crazy with Christmas decorations outside their homes, but the Christmas spirit has been growing! I believe there are even competitions between the houses now! It's turned into something like we see in the movies about the US.
It was insanely busy, but so well organized with Penbev/Coca-Cola deploying trucks with Christmas lights and plenty of helpful road marshals!
There were even houses selling hot chocolate and boerewors rolls and all kinds of Christmas goodies and Coca-Cola was handing out bottles of coke for free!
Some of the houses had incredible decorations both inside and outside their houses and with various home owners in Santa suits, people were guided into queues to view the magic.
We got there a bit late and it was to chaotic to park, but we spent quite a lot of time - two hours!- driving around and circling back. It was just so glorious to see.
Next year, I think we'll be better prepared and we'll also stop to walk around and get involved.
It really was a special evening! And thank heavens we could just throw together some chicken burgers when we got home :)
With queues like that and the amount of people in the street walking from house to house, I wonder what time they got home!