Christmas lights and sights in Melbourne 2024

The weeks leading up to Christmas have been crazy busy this year.  We had three nights in a row of getting home after 11am (film, city lights and local lights)!  So many opportunities for festive photos.  Here are a select few.  For a start, I loved the above blow up Christmas decorations in Barrow St, Coburg.  So cute.

This is the Christmas display at Present Story, a great gift shop on Nicholson Street in Coburg.  It is a fun Christmas beach scene with signs to different cities around the world and a tree.  It does not include the blow up pink flamingos that were part of a Christmas beach photo opportunity in an office I work at once a week.

This is another fun part of the staff area dedicated to Christmas at the same office.  This one was Santa's workshop with lots of fun elf parody's of the office such as charts, diagrams and feedback.  The signs outside this area pointed to "reindeer parking", "wish list processing" and "sleigh loading" and one sign saying "elves at work: hats with bells must be worn in this area".  I was told it was a fundraiser.

I did a festive diorama workshop with Sylvia.  She was quick to find all the cute houses and to finish her diorama by the end of the workshop.  Mine hung around unfinished at home for a week or two and did not look this good!

This was the Victoria St Mall in Coburg when it was festive with a Christmas tree, bows on trees and a photo op with the three elves.  After the Coburg Night Market we were sad to see the Christmas tree bent over and the gum trees stripped of their bows.  Since then I have seen that the tree and elves have gone but the bows were recently returned.  Why would anyone do this!

We loved the German Christmas Market at the German Lutheran Church in East Melbourne last year.  This year we returned with my parents.  It is only a small market but has some nice gifts and crafts, plus the opportunity to have summer gluhwein.

I love a bit of Bluey on the local streets.  This fence in West Brunswick with the Bluey characters at Christmas is gorgeous.

This year bows are everywhere even on fences like on this gorgeous terrace house with elegant decorations.

I had lunch at Nikos in Fairfield (more on the food later) and loved their festive decorations.

These beautiful wreaths in Fairfield (outside Nikos) are made my creative friend Kerin.  She took old signs that a friend took down and cut them in to ribbons to tie on a wire circle to make the wreaths, then she spray painted them and added some baubles.  So great to see sustainable Christmas decorations on the streets!

When we were in Geelong to help my parents put up their tree, my mum served us jelly slice and hedgehog.  You can see my parents' sideboard that used to sit in my grandparents' house.  It has a wreath and candles in the middle surrounded by Christmas cards.  I seem to get less and less cards every year and send less and less.  It makes me sad but it is down my list of priorities for Christmas.  My dad wanted a slightly different configuration but he knows how to pick his battles!

I really loved this idea to "Fill your own Advent Calendar" from Myer.  It was not cheap to fill it with lots of fancy chocolates, socks and littleso we did not purchase one but the painting of the Bourke Street Myer building on the box fills me with delight.  It is such an iconic building and department store in Melbourne.  They have downsized but I am glad they continue to hang in there.  There was a lot less "giftorium" this year but we saw some beautiful decorations.

Every year we love to see the Myer Christmas windows.  They often promote a book with great detailed displays.  Last year the Bluey Christmas Windows were amazing.  This year they featured the Australia Zoo that was founded by Steve Irwin and still run by his kids Bindi and Robert.  We did not bother queuing as the displays did not spark joy or feel at all festive.  Though judging by the queues, there were plenty of people keen to wait in a long line to see it.  But we enjoyed a night time walk to see the festive lights of the city.

I preferred that H&M display of Santa on a sleigh pulled by kangaroos.  The magnificent building used to be the GPO so it is nice to see it sporting some festive cheer.

Even better than the former GPO was the Town Hall which had colourful festive images projected onto the building's portico and columns.  This image make the town hall look very candy cane with little images of Melbourne icons such as trams and the Arts Centre spire. 

Other images that were rotating on the Town Hall projects included beach scenes and native animals wearing paper crowns from Christmas crackers.  Many included native flowers but others, like the above images seemed abstract and yet very festive and cheerful.

We wandered through Fed Square and chanced upon a festive queer cabaret called As camp as Christmas.  This was unexpected but it was one of Sylvia's favourite sights of the night.  We especially loved Dave the Pudding!

Then we walked across the Swanston Street bridge and along South Bank where the restaurants were doing great business.  Lots of people getting together before Christmas.  (Which sounds nice until I spoke to my neighbour who had had covid in her family this year for the third Christmas in a row!  That is enough to turn me off big Christmas parties!).  We enjoyed gazing out upon Christmas lights lighting up the Evan Walker pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River and Flinders Street Station.

Sylvia had her heart set upon seeing the Crown Casino's river show that could be seen ever 15 minutes but only if you beat the crowds at the waters edge.  I had set my expectations too high and was not impressed by the rotating coloured lights on the water spouts accompanied by carols, especially as I am too short to see over all the people in front of me.  So instead of a photo from the river, I am sharing this photo of some of the festive lights on the river bank that I enjoyed more. 

Then it was time to go home by train.  One of my favourite sights of the night was Flinders Street Station with lights projecting on it to make it look like  it was made out of gingerbread.  It looked like we could reach out and break off a piece of the building to eat.  If only...

I could not believe that one of our favourite local houses with an amazing Christmas light display was featured in The Age newspaper a day before we set out to the see the local lights.  We love the place in Shaftsbury Street, Coburg enough to queue up for 30 minutes so we could walk in their wintery wonderland.  They even had a snow machine!

We also visited this this wonderfully decorated Molesworth St house  in Coburg that has snowmen in the front yard, santa on a see saw and santa and a penguin riding a polar bear!  It is another favourite Christmas light display.

We also went to an amazing house in Evell St, Glenroy that Sylvia had spotted online.  The exterior had some really nice festive lights but it was the displays in the couple's garage that were really special.  There was lots of whimsy: lots of vintage lit up santas, a giant lit up kiwi bird, and frogs reading to each other. The masterpiece was the intricate diorama of Bethlehem.  It was so much detail that it was hard to know where to look.

You can see the manger scene in this close up photo.  The man who made it was dressed as santa and loved having people come and see his creation.  His wife told us that he spends a lot of time in the garage working on it all year round!  What an amazing project!

Finally here are a few more details from the local Christmas lights: a dancing kangaroo, snowmen balancing on each other, santa climbing a rope ladder and a giraffe.  So much fun and whimsy to enjoy.  And that is Christmas all over.  So much to love!