Ending the Holidays – New Jersey Style

People typically think of huge refineries, plastics, chemicals, and generally a toxic superfund site when I tell them I live in central New Jersey. Either that or they ask what kind of handgun protection I recommend since I must be an expert. Hmmm….well this post is dedicated to dispelling a couple of these (well maybe one) foul rumors. Yes – its true that central Jersey west of the I-78-287 interchange is a bucolic and pastoral mixture of farms, preserved lands, and small towns, rich in history and tradition.

I live in one such town. Our population is about 2500 (300 families). We have a fantastic 4th of July celebration, we have a fantastic Halloween celebration that draws hundreds of people, and we celebrate the Christmas holidays in style.

Part of our Christmas holiday celebrations in town is 12th Night. On this night we celebrate by tossing all our trees, yes the very symbol of Odin, into a huge pile and then torch them up. So if you want to see what 200-300 trees set alight with a few road flares (supervised by our local fire company) check this out. All these pics were taken from 20-30 feet away. I did scale them down quite a bit in Photoshop so that they would load faster. Not too bad for night pics.

Here’s the pile prior to ignition:

Here’s ignition:

Here’s the full out blazing bonfire:

Check out those sparks! I would estimate the flame height at about 25′!

After the fire has burned down we all go in and have some cake and cookies. The lucky boy and girl that find the golden coins become the King and Queen of 12th Night.

The pics were all taken with a Cannon SD-950 IS on manual mode at full 12.1 MP resolution.

So that’s a bit about where I live. We like to burn stuff and buy wacky Swedish cars.