Festive Pensacola Lights
When the weather gets cold, come late afternoon, I shed my clothes and put on a cocoon of warm nightgown and purple hooded floor length fleece robe, just around sunset.
Yesterday, around lunch time (AdventureMan was finishing off a leftover crepe from Christmas morning), AdventureMan asked if I could forestall my cozy couture for an early evening date – going out to look at the Christmas lights of Pensacola.
We drove from East Pensacola to East Hill to North Hill, and into downtown Pensacola, then circled back through the southern part of East Pensacola. In truth, far fewer lights than we had expected. If people are feeling festive, they are keeping it low key this year.
One house decorates year after year in a joyful excess, each year adding more and more:

I don’t even have it all in this one photo. The details are endless, and the time it must take to set this up is a gift to the community.
AdventureMan is already thinking ahead to next year. He knows what I want – a simple creche. Here is one at a nearby church, much bigger than I want, but the idea. I want the Nativity, with Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a couple angels, a couple sheep, the three Wise Men and a camel, in honor of our time living in the Middle East. You know, keeping it simple.

In East Pensacola, we saw several groups of people out walking, looking at the lights. In North hill, there was one house with a beautiful tree on a lit balcony, which made me long to be in the Garden District of New Orleans where the houses decorate so lushly and tastefully.
Downtown Pensacola usually lights up all the trees, top to bottom, a magical sight, but this year only Palafox south of Garden is fully lit:

We love La Rua, and almost bought a house there when we first arrived in Pensacola. On La Rua, there is a grand house, beautifully decorated, and this was the last stop we made before heading home.

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