Durham City's Lighting of the Lights

As always, when it comes to government/council sponsored things, the result was underwhelming.  Let me preface with the following before you judge me.

"They're here."

That was a massively awesome set of TV screens. They seemed to be hi-def from where I was standing but to my camera it appears to be circa 1982 via Poltergeist. You can see the draping of the strings of Christmas lights. There were vendors hawking the lighted toys you get at the Oklahoma State Fair. Sorry. The Great State Fair of Oklahoma. There were even toy bubble machines. There were minor celebrities from this country and I have no idea who they were but I did get excited when I saw Jason Isaacs' (Lucius Malfoy) name appear and was disappointed that we missed him as he was listed as being on earlier in the day. There were people on the stage televised on the big screen TV. So, I know what people look like, just not who they are. And they were trying to get people to sing Christmas carols. But when you yourself don't even remember the whole song, how are you going to get a bunch of chavs into the holiday spirit? And then... the guy who was leading the singing was applauded and it was said that it was Jason Isaacs. OH NO IT WASN'T! It was not my Jason Isaacs, it was some other Jason Isaacs who I've never heard or seen before. 

Really, for all the fuss that went into this, I expected a bit more when it came to the moment we all were waiting for. There wasn't even a tree.

Now in my relationship, I'm the Clark Griswold, but even Dan noticed that Norman, with its miles and miles of Christmas decorations, doesn't put out the big whoop like this. And we decided that if Norman did put up the same amount of decoration that Durham did, you can darn well bet there wouldn't be a big ceremony involving a plunger.

It is pretty though. Just imagined that there'd be more. Afterwards, we headed to Nando's for some vittles. Dan wins the feeding-of-the-child award for today. He ordered the green olive appetizer, which she ate. He ordered the kids' grilled chicken with the light peri-peri BBQ sauce and she ate that too! I tried it and it was hotter than I would think a kid's food item should be but she's a daddy's girl. However, she also tucked right into the frozen yogurt, so really, she's my kid too.

Did Natalie like the Christmas Lights Spectacular Extravaganza Soiree? I think so...

Result: A nice time out of the house.