{"id":5395,"date":"2013-12-12T04:10:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T04:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soundslikewish.wordpress.com\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2013-12-12T04:10:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T04:10:19","slug":"grand-symbol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"Grand symbol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two photo challenges this week have prompted me to think of one family’s Christmas effort.\u00a0 The WP challenge was ‘Grand’,<\/a> and Ailsa’s challenge was ‘Symbol’<\/a>, in honour of Nelson Mandela.\u00a0 Well, last night, here in Canberra, I found a ‘Grand Symbol’!<\/p>\n

Lights are a symbol of hope, always appropriate at Christmas.\u00a0 And when someone wins the Guinness World Record for the year for the most Christmas lights decorating a property, it’s because they’ve made a grand effort.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last night we drove to the winning house and I took some photos.\u00a0 My camera’s not great for night photography and my skills are barely even those of an amateur, but you’ll get an idea of what it must be like to live in the same street with such a winner.\u00a0 All the surrounding houses were remarkable for their darkness;\u00a0 perhaps they feel a pointlessness in competing.\u00a0 This grand display might even be a bit hard to endure night after night through the Christmas period:\u00a0 there are traffic controls at that end of the street, cars parked up and down all the nearby streets, and of course the multicoloured glow for several hours.<\/p>\n

We walked through the garden of lights, entering on the left side of the front yard and exiting at the right.\u00a0 Strings of LEDs, many of them white, some of them red, blue and green, flashed on and off, not rapidly, but at regular intervals changing the show.\u00a0 For me, the glaring white was not pleasant and kept me from lingering long amid the display.\u00a0 It had the effect of mid-summer sunlight on white concrete.\u00a0 In the past, coloured lightbulbs were warmer and, indeed, more colourful.\u00a0 But I know, I know, they’re not ‘green’.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tall pine tree trunk covered in Christmas lights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Christmas<\/a>
Christmas lights decorating pine tree and hedge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, I appreciate the effort these people have put into their decorations, and it’s important to know that, as each visitor enters, they are asked to donate to the Sids and Kids charity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Wall of Christmas lights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Christmas<\/a>
The real and the unreal:\u00a0 Moon shining down on a Christmas star<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two photo challenges this week have prompted me to think of one family’s Christmas effort.\u00a0 The WP challenge was ‘Grand’, and Ailsa’s challenge was ‘Symbol’, in honour of Nelson Mandela.\u00a0 Well, last night, here in Canberra, I found a ‘Grand Symbol’! Lights are a symbol of hope, always appropriate at Christmas.\u00a0 And when someone wins … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Grand symbol”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[539,540,7,8,21,226,541,542],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-photos","tag-christmas-lights","tag-guinness-world-record-christmas-lights","tag-photography","tag-photos-2","tag-postaday","tag-postaday2013","tag-symbol","tag-weekly-photo-challenge-grand"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}