….right down Santa Claus Lane
I moved to East San Diego County back in 1999, and each Christmas season since then I have been looking for Santa Claus Lane. There is one house on Santa Claus Lane that is always the most decorated each Christmas. Been that way for 37 years as I understand it. The problem has always been that there is no Santa Claus Lane.
A couple of days ago, though, an online paper explained that Santa Claus Lane doesn’t actually exist. Rather, the City of Lemon Grove designated a small street as Santa Claus Lane because of the house that gets highly decorated each Christmas. The paper was nice enough to include a Google map of the location! Gotta love the Internet!
The owner of the house has announced that this is the last year he is going to do this — he’s 87 and is probably one of the 47% living on Social Security and not paying taxes (that’s political commentary).
Yesterday evening I went in search of the house and Santa Claus Lane. And I found it!
I took those pictures with the my Canon 550D set on Programmed, and hand held since I did not have my tripod with me. The camera chose ISO 4000, 5000, and 6400, which accounts for all the digital noise in the pictures.
This coming weekend I’ll go back with my tripod with the intent of getting some really good pictures without all the digital noise by using ISO 100 and longer exposure times.
Location of Santa Claus Lane:
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Posted on December 10, 2012, in Manmade, Out & About, Photos and tagged christmas pictures, lemon grove pictures. Bookmark the permalink. 28 Comments.
I like all the lights on the houses etc. in Christmas season
Beautiful… as always.
Best wishes,
mei
What’s digital noise?
Basically lots of odd-colored dots in the picture. It’s really bad in the fourth picture above. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_noise
Ah, thanks, Russel. I don’t see much of that on my cell phone camera, but definitely see it on my zoomed Vivitar images. Now I know what to call it! xoM
Wow! He really does go all out.
What a display, I would not want the electric bill – but the sight is awesome.
He says the work required to put the lights up, his age, and the electric bill are causing him the call an end to it.
Understand.
I hope at 87-years-old he isn’t getting on a ladder to put those lights up. He must have help.
He claims he doesn’t, and since none of his neighbors have called him a liar (which is easy to do in this Internet world), we have to believe him.
Looks a bit like my house lol. We’ve totally gone overboard this year as have our friends across from us, it looks lovely
Tripod??? I thought you didn’t believe in these things
I have a tripod and a monopod but as you can tell, I don’t carry them around with me. I maybe use them once a year since I don’t do a lot of night photography.
It’s pretty joyous this time of year. You’ve captured it well – looks like Vegas!
Sometimes when I see these lights all around I think, ‘OMG, all that electricity… what about people who need food, even shelter…’ I can’t help it.
I’m not fully okay with it – do love it, think it’s awesome & beautiful, but then again… I always think of the electricity burning up while people are in need in our communities. Can’t help it!!
But YES, BEAUTIFUL
Merry Christmas, Russel. I noticed you’d done some catching up with my tale. Thanks heaps for coming by, reading – for your interest.
N’n.
I’m the same way. I particularly have it in for these monster churches. Does God really need these megachurches? Imagine if the 15,000 people who sat in them each Sunday actually spent their time and money out in the community helping the sick, the homeless, the poor, etc.
I like your political commentary.
I wonder how long it takes to assemble that sort of show? Thirty-seven years, wow, that’s some dedication.
Been feeling very San Diego-ish lately; my WIP is set there, and my daughter and son-in-law live in your fine city. Looking forward to more pictures!!
And thanks for stopping by my blog.
I love going hunting for Christmas lights but for some reasons I haven’t gone the past few years. Maybe it’s the lack of enthused company that tagged along the other times but I think it would be comforting to go Christmas-decorated (solo) house hunting with a cup of hot chocolate
I feel like such a humbug. My first thoughts were that I’m glad he’s not my neighbor and that his electrical bill must be huge. Gotta love the enthusiasm, though.
Beautiful!!
Fun effects for the lights! Thanks for camping out at my blog recently. Always nice to see you and to be drawn back to the Wonderful World of Russel!
Well, it was awfully nice of him to make such a good effort for so long. The new led lights hardly use any power at all, but at that age he should have a neighbour help. We drove around the island last night taking some pictures of really cute cottages all decorated. As you know, there’s not too many street lights here so they really stand out.
We always do Coronado on Christmas Eve.
What a fun thing, did you see the Boat parade of lights last night? We really enjoyed it.
I didn’t. We got waylayed by eating out with one of our coupons that expired last night. We’ll most likely go this coming weekend.
Lovely and impressive for him to have kept that up for so long that he’s gotten a star on Google Maps! I saw some really nice ones yesterday and a display from a University (cough) been meaning to organize and post .. but that house had gi-normous SNOW GLOBES .. Lovely!
I just read about the 47% saga. Anyway, I am glad he is making people happy by building up a virtual lane called Santa Claus Lane, what an achievement =).
kc
OMC, what a lot of work, but I certainly do love it