Episode 68 - Christmastime at Lighthouses, 2nd Edition

0:00 Hi everyone, I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. Christmas edition! I'm over here struggling. Vince and I got some... What are they? Ninja... It's a ninja blast. Oh really? Yeah, that's the model. And made ourselves some frappuccinos before this. So it's a special occasion. And that's because it's the holidays. Christmas gift from mom. Thanks mom. Shout out to Vince's mom. So I actually do have a history buoy today.

0:40 Even though this is our yearly once annual Christmas episode. Now part two. But last time I didn't have a history buoy because we were announcing the winner of our giveaway. Which we should have done this year. But I kind of forgot. Was it the Tumblr last year? Nice. Which seems like it was a long long time ago. Only a year is kind of crazy. But so anyway we don't have that so I have a history buoy. So I have a little picture here. I'm going to be covering deck prisms. Which I just learned about the other day because my twin sister Carly shout out to Carly. Shout outs everywhere.

1:22 She sent me one that was for sale. And was like have you ever heard of this? And I was like no. So I'm going to talk about it. So in the past you know light sources were all dangerous to have around wood because it was fire and oil and like. You mentioned that the other day. Yeah. Fire and wood keep them separate. Yes exactly. Is that yesterday? And so when you think about most ships like back then were made out of wood then you'd best find an alternate light source for under deck. Yeah most ships more problem. Yeah. So they made this alternate light source called deck prisms which became common in wooden ships. As you can see it's basically they cut a hole into the deck of the ship and place a glass prism inside so the deck of the ship is flush you know it's still flat. But there are these little holes where light comes in and then the shape of the prism expands the light source.

2:20 So instead of it just being like a hole where there's like you know a shaft of light filtering in it's it's expanded. That's crazy. I've never seen this before. Not unlike our beautiful for now lenses. So it's relevant. And obviously this wasn't helpful at night time but it allowed for ample light when it was daytime. Yeah. And also wouldn't you know have leaks and stuff. That's huge. If you installed it correctly. And I have another photo. Were they mostly triangular? Oh no. There's lots of different shapes. You can see them all over the place. This one was pretty cool. Pointy. But there's a ton of them too. On this example. That's super cool. So is this are these all the same example?

3:00 Oh yes. On the left it looks quite scratched. But on the right the lights coming through really well. It's pretty clear. I feel like even if it's not a clear prism light still comes through pretty easy. It doesn't have to be. No I've never heard of these. They weren't any pirate movies. No I know. I was like I guess it adds to the ambiance to have it really dark below deck in pirate movies. But yeah my sister sent me this. She's like have you ever heard of this? I was like no. Shout out to Carly. Shout out to Carly giving us an excellent history of Bowie to cover. But yeah they actually sell a lot of these online. So they're like artifacts that you can buy like from Viking ships and stuff. One of my references is from a place that has a bunch of Viking antiques and artifacts. That's crazy.

3:46 And they have a few of these. Ship antiques are cool huh? Yeah. That's awesome. So do you know about what years these were in use? I know that the artifact that the Viking website used was from 1899. So I'm not sure exactly when. 1899 for that one example. Yeah. That's all I got. But yeah that's our history of Bowie. And now I will go into our Christmas episode just like last year for those of us who have been around that long. I did a Christmas episode last year that I just covered a couple of lighthouses that we had already covered in our podcast and what they do for Christmas time. And so I'm doing that again this year. So I randomly selected some lighthouses from our past episodes that do Christmas related stuff. And I'm going to tell you about them. Did we also talk Flying Santa last year? Or was that? That was the year before that. What? I know.

4:42 Oh man. Time is flying. But I do have a brief mention of Flying Santa in this one. So let's get into it. These are in no particular order. I just kind of selected some. So first one I'm going to do is Nubble Light or Cape Nettic Lighthouse. This was one of the staples for Christmas decorating traditions when it comes to lighthouses. And I remember I pulled a picture during the episode and was like I would talk about this but I'm going to save it for our Christmas episode. We covered this in episode 62. This is located in York, Maine. We have a few, I think a few Maine lighthouses here. Or maybe they're pretty spread out. I don't know yet. So the island that this is on is not accessible to public but up to 8,000 people gather in the park across the water for the first Saturday after Thanksgiving for the lighting of the Nubble event.

5:34 Which is very exciting. Is Nubble the one that had the baby transporting thing, rope and bucket. Check out the episode. Episode 62 everybody. But they switch a flip and the lighthouse is illuminated by Christmas lights. I got some pictures. They switch a flip. They switch a flip and boom, wow, there are Christmas lights in the sky. I'm not even tired. I'm just that way. Oh, gosh. Nubble.

6:14 Very lit. They put lights around just about every crease of the lighthouse so it's pretty exciting. Really well done. All the outbuildings, oil, boathouse, they got it all. So this one's obviously like very popular, highly photographed type of event. So Matt Rosenberg who's the modern day keeper on the island says, quote, it has become popular enough that we now close the park to cars so kids can run around with their families as they wait for Santa to arrive. That's nice. The park's trust board serves hot cocoa and cookies to everybody. I believe they're free. They're live reindeer and the York High School chamber choir sings carols and then they do the countdown for the lighthouse to turn on the lights. Man, what an event. Always an event, yeah.

7:00 The tradition of the Christmas lights started in the early 80s, 1980s. Mrs. Margaret Cummings who lived on York Beach donated Christmas lights to the lighthouse in honor of her late husband and the Coast Guard keeper at the time volunteered to put them up and they were lit November 1987. And ever since then they've just kept up the tradition. They add more and more lights and now it's like this big, big thing that remain on every night until New Year's. That's really cool. Yeah. And I just saw that they also do a July lighting for summertime visitors because like most visitors to Maine go during the summer when the weather's nice.

7:42 Like not when it's, I mean you can just see in this picture that it's all snowy. And so they have a July event which personally I disagree with. Christmas in July. I just Christmas. It's a thing. It's at the opposite end of the spectrum. There's no beach Santa. I've seen depictions of a beach Santa. That's when he's off and then not it's Christmas. That's when he's off duty. So that was Cape Nettick lighthouse. It's a big one. Next I'm going to talk about Edgar Towne lighthouse. This was episode 47 and it's at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

8:24 And Vince and I went there. Didn't include any pictures from our trip because this is a Christmas episode and we went in August. Yeah it was awesome though. Or maybe it was September I can't remember. Is that the one we walked to that was kind of far? Yeah from the bus stop. It was fun. Edgar Towne was really pretty and they do. Big coffee. Apparently Edgar Towne is like the place to be around Christmas time. So any of our listeners who live around there confirm or deny. But it sounds like this place is popping around Christmas time. So this year was the 43rd annual Christmas in Edgar Towne event. The festival was on December 12th through 15th and the whole town is decorated and the lighthouse is covered in lights and wreaths. Nice.

9:12 It's a really nice. Very pretty. I like there's different colors. So like you know, noble lighthouse is just like all lit, very red looking and this one's like we got drapey lights. We've got framing lights, wreaths all kinds of stuff. The multicolor. Yeah. The red beacon. I can appreciate that. Oh yeah the red beacon is nice. A nice touch. Very Christmas like of them. This year they had a most festive fit award. Which from what I've read it's like elves. The outfit. So yeah. So you visit Edgar Towne if you live there or whatever.

9:54 Elves quote, unquote keep watch over Edgar Towne from December 2nd to 14th and approach you if you are dressed festively and on December 14th the contenders who were invited by the elves return for final judging to decide who has the most festive fit. Oh my gosh. I like is that right? It just sounds crazy like you just walk around town in a super festive outfit and hope to be approached as like a contestant on this most festive fit. The elves must be employed by the city. Yeah they must be like city employees hanging around. Hired from Santa. So funny.

10:34 So I thought that was cute. I think it's the first year they're doing it so we'll have to see how it turned out. Because Vince and I are recording this before this event happens. But when it comes out it will be after. So maybe we'll have to do a look and see. Crazy. Stores decorate their windows and visitors vote for their favorite one which I think is fun. So basically it's like competition between the stores to like have the most highly decorated window like shop window. Nice. And local art groups decorate Christmas trees for visitors to walk through. They say it's like a Christmas forest and then I'm sure you vote for your favorite one of that too. That's awesome. And Saturday morning is the parade which I saw one blogger who took photos and like went to this event and I got to see it from her point of view but it looks pretty cool. It looks fun. Isn't this a town where they don't need cars?

11:28 Isn't that what we determined? Mostly. There were lots of cars driving around but it would have been better as a town with no cars. The island is kind of small. Yeah. Yeah it was the one where we took the bus for like fifteen minutes along the water. Yeah it's just big enough for a car I guess. Yeah it's big enough but yeah it would have been better. Out on Martha's Vineyard. Edgar Town has all kinds of events like light shows, wreath auctions, holiday cocktail competitions, cookie dederi... cookie de... Wait. I'm trying. I'm just trying to say cookie decorating.

12:08 Cookie decorating and pop ups. And other stuff. So like that's a lot of really cool fun stuff in the town. Yeah. To have going on. It would be fun to be there. So now I'm thinking that we should definitely have that on our list for like some kind of Christmas trip. We would need a house. Excuse me? There's not a lot of... There's not a lot of like hotels I saw going on there. No they're around. They just weren't downtown where we were. Oh. That would be a fun family event too. Like your side of the family if we all just went to Edgar Town. I feel like your mom would love that. She would. It's just far away. Yeah. Got a plan on it. That's what flights are for. That's what money's for.

12:48 Yeah. Money for fun. For your spending. But the lighthouse kicks off the Christmas and Edgar Town festival lit on Friday with free hot chocolate and cookies for all. Which seems to be a common theme with our lighthouse lightings. Free hot chocolate and free cookies. Like that. Yeah. So that's Edgar Town. I think that one's probably the most... I think it's because the town itself is Christmasy that I am interested in seeing it. Like I would go to see a Christmas lighting at a lighthouse. But when there's other stuff to do that's when it's like oh. Like holiday cocktail competitions. It sounds amazing. Do you think most people are taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard for this? I don't know.

13:32 Yeah. We kind of looked around. The house is near where we walked. Maybe it's not all that way. But they were quite grand. You know they looked like maybe they were seasonal homes. And maybe it's still maybe it's still locals but it's like Cape Cod locals and not or like people from New York or something come down. It's not people like us traveling from the middle. From the middle. Next one I'm going to talk about Split Rock Lighthouse which I couldn't find any pictures of whether or not they actually do holiday lights for Split Rock. And maybe they don't because it's the one that's on the edge of the cliff. I found a picture. Oh yeah I remember that one.

14:12 A cool one with the snow and stuff. Cold. Yeah very cold. I'm thinking that's probably why they don't do a bunch. Unless there's just no photos of it but I feel like that's hard to believe. But this was episode 44 and is in Two Harbors Minnesota. So chill little chilly. Every Saturday in December starting the weekend after Thanksgiving you can take a tour of the lighthouse and they do a guided tour of the Keeper's Dwelling and then make your own vintage ornament inside. And then you can either decide to decorate the Keeper's house with that ornament or you can take it home with you. Nice. Pretty cute. This is it's just north of Duluth is it right? Yeah.

14:52 And also Santa visits the lighthouse for one weekend in December to take pictures with the kids for free. Busy man. Yeah. He's all over. Yeah so this one's a little more subdued but I thought it was really unique that you can go to the lighthouse and make ornaments. How nice is that? Alright I got two lighthouse left. This will be a pretty quick episode. I feel like last year I had better luck with finding lighthouse events. More like Edgar Town where I don't know. Remember like Saint Augustine? Yep. They had like crazy tree. Yeah. Tree scavenger hunt. Yeah. One of them was inside the tower. Love that one.

15:32 So cool. Pretty cool. Okay. Next one is oh no. It's either Navisync or Navisync lighthouse. We do this every time. Navi? Navisync. I'll just say Navisync. But that was episode 54 also known as Twin Lights. And if you look at the south tower because there's a north and a south tower. If you look at the south tower the day before December 1130 you may be surprised to see that a tree has appeared. Oh yeah. I remember this. Another thing that I wasn't going to talk about until this episode. Here's a nice crazy photo that this person's taken.

16:14 I forgot to put credits on all of our photos but I guess I'll have to do that later. Shout out to them. But this tree as shown in our photos is actually made of draped Christmas lights. And in 2008 Highland citizen Diane Micklewane noticed that the tree wasn't there. And she had just moved and she really liked it. And she found out that the people who did it before could no longer put up the tree. And so she offered to take over doing it every year. And they said yes. That's nice. I know. So every year 12 strands of C9 Christmas lights are strung in the lantern room and lit until late winter. So they keep it up for a while.

16:54 And they have a tree lighting ceremony on the day before December. And an event called Winterfest. Heck yeah. And you can at Winterfest you can join all day for tower climbs crafts and free hot chocolate. And they have like kids goodie bags and stuff that you can take home. I know. It strikes again. It must be pretty cheap. Like if you get the powdered version and just like mix it with hot water. Vince hates that. There's a couple things where I replace milk with water and Vince is like this is wrong. It's supposed to be milk. Like mac and cheese. Yes. Macaroni and cheese you use milk.

17:36 I usually don't have milk. He needs some milk. We did have milk for our frappuccinos. So it's not a total abomination. Yeah thank god it wasn't water. How crazy that would have been. We just come from different lifestyles right? I'm making do with what I got. I'm some luxurious boy because I have milk in my life. You're just pampered is all. Silver spoon in your mouth. Milk in the fridge. Milk always in the fridge. You don't understand. Anyway wow derailed. Until 2019 the lights had to be connected via an extension cord that they ran all the way down the banister of the light tower. And then in 2019 they finally installed an electrical outlet in the lantern room so that this becomes a much easier tradition.

18:22 It's kind of shocking they didn't have an outlet. But you think about it. Lighthouses are not built with electricity. Yeah but you can I mean I guess I'm in construction. You can run a conduit in a 120 you can run a basic socket outlet pretty easily. And maybe they would have added an outlet if like I think South Tower wasn't used when there was electricity. Remember they had like a generator like as a backup. Oh yeah. And so they just never connected it to electricity. That's really cool. Yeah it's interesting. First lighthouse to have I think electricity. Good for them volunteering. Yeah woohoo! That's how we keep traditions alive. People have got to be passionate and take charge. Yeah that dude's wearing Carhartt. You can see that logo on his arm.

19:08 He knows what he's doing. Those glasses and the Carhartt you know he's the man. See they've upped their tree because originally she said it was eight strands and it didn't look tree enough. But now you can see from this picture this was oh sorry this photo that I have up was from this year from Diane's Facebook page putting up the lights for the year. Let's go Diane. It seems that they've got some like branching lights now. They've got some horizontal light going on so I feel like they it still could be 12 strands of lights. But it's just like cause like here you can see the strands turn into three strands at the bottom.

19:48 Yeah that could just be one that's run across and then like zip tied. Yes you're right. I didn't see the zip ties. If they want to reach out to us talk us through the procedure. Yeah. Love it. And our last one is Goat Island Lighthouse. This was episode 66 the one before our last episode. Second to last light in the US to be automated and this was actually one of the original drop off locations for Flying Santa. So you know Flying Santa people go listen to our episode. I should probably listen to it too so I can get reacquainted with the tradition. But Santa basically Santa quote unquote used to fly around in a small plane and drop off necessities but also nice little gifts for keepers that were at lighthouses that were not accessible around Christmas time. And now it's been upgraded Santa in a helicopter. And so here's a picture of it in front of Goat Island Lighthouse which is one of the originals in Maine.

20:50 And Scott Dombrowski who is the current like caretaker for the light also decorates the lighthouse with an elaborate display of Christmas lights every year. And I couldn't find a picture of that either. So it's kind of a bummer. Heck yes Scott. Go Scott. That's awesome. That's it. That is all of our Christmas events at lighthouses for this year. Maybe next year I'll target lighthouses to cover that will have cool Christmas events going on. At Christmas time or before? No at Christmas time. I'm sorry. Shoot. No early Christmas is blasphemy. I already think that Christmas in November is a mistake.

21:34 People who are doing that it's a shame. She shakes her head at you. Christmas time should not be 20 percent of the year. Should be less than 10 percent. People start too early. So what's the optimal date to start Christmas? December 1st. I went a little early with Christmas music this year because I was needing to pick me up. But I didn't decorate until December 1st. December 1st. And when do the Christmas decorations come down? New Year's. Day before New Year's. So that's one twelfth of the year approximately.

22:14 Less than 10 percent. Indeed. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from the Lighthouse Lowdown. Thank you to all of our listeners that have hung on all year long. Vince and I did not miss a single episode on time this year. Incredible. Big win. Incredible. We are big winners. Also to go along with that, Vince and I will be skipping an episode for the holidays. So our next episode is going to be released on January 20th, 2025 by Vincent Bailey. Let's go. So keep an eye out for that, but don't be alarmed when in a couple more Mondays we're not going to be posting an episode.

22:58 We've got a little month break. We'll still post something that just says, hey. Hey. Check in next week. Next two weeks. Stick around. Don't go anywhere. Yeah. But we thank you and we hope that everyone has a joyful holidays and an excellent New Year. And we'll see you in 2025. Next year. And we'll catch you there on the lighthouse. Lora here.