When Peter Last and Zehra Ulukan signed the contract for their dream home in 2014, they almost missed a clause towards the bottom. “Christmas decorations.” How odd, they thought, as they signed the document, before the chaos of moving and the minutiae of everyday life pushed the detail from their consciousness. But a few months later, when a lights extravaganza erupted on their street, the distant memory of that Christmas clause hit them.The couple had not only purchased a house on “Christmas Street”, but their home was the very one that had started a tradition which has lasted almost half a century.Second Street, Ashbury, like much of Sydney, becomes aglow in December. With the help of Christmas Light Search, a platform where anyone can add their lights and find nearby displays, the Herald has compiled a list of this years best lights.paragraphtitle: Second Street, Ashburyhttps://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/multimedia-gallery/index.html?resizable=true&v=600&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/multimedia-gallery/52546.json&v=0.6249221103536196; size: largeLight up time: 7.30pm-10pm; until 11pm on Christmas weekDisplay dates: December 6 to December 31Last and Ulukan bought their home from Laurie McGinty, who championed Second Street’s spirit of Christmas by ensuring a tradition his parents started of getting the community to light up their houses every year lived on, even after they died and he moved away.“Laurie comes every year and says his parents would be so proud,” Ulukan said. “People still remember this house because of him.” Ulukan said she had hardly celebrated Christmas before moving in. “But this is special,” she said. “You meet so many different people who come from the west; we get letters in our letter box saying thank you so much.“This makes me realise that theres more good in the world than bad. Thats what makes it worth it for us; sometimes you want to get the scissors and just cut the bloody thing when youre putting them up, and youre pulling your hair out trying to untie cords.“The second its up, for those four weeks, its pure joy.”Three houses down is Peter Gregory, who has strung up the first lights for his familys first Christmas on Second Street.“We knew it was Christmas street when we bought it,” Gregory said. “Once we bought it, we knew the pressure was on.” https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=566&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52451.json&v=0.6116644517671725paragraphtitle: 6 Carter Crescent, Padstow Heights Light up time: 8pm to 10pmDisplay dates: December 1 to January 3From the outside, Ken and Georgia Martin’s house looks like an elaborately lit abode. But take one step inside, and you’ve stepped into a Christmas wonderland jungle.Only open on Fridays and Saturdays from 8pm to 10pm, the first thing visitors must get past is Bundy, the bouncer. The notoriously grizzly man who stands about two metres tall with enough hair to cover three small children, will viciously stare at anyone who dares enter the home. Next is a test for the claustraphobics.It is a crime for any wall, staircase or tree not to be decked out in an ultra-maximalist fashion. Take one wrong step, and you have destroyed a mini Christmas Lemax city. Trip on a small bauble, and you wipe out pastel pink candy land. Ken says the line to enter his home over the weekend, leading up to Christmas is often over an hour and a half.“Last time … we had to get people to mend the gate and we had to block off the street because visitors wanted to come inside — there was a line about an hour and a half long,” Ken said. “When Georgia and I first courted, then dated and then finally got married we realised the first Christmas we spent together we were Christmas Griswolds.“We just laughed and said, ‘What are we both getting ourselves into?’ Georgia had already started her Lemax collection.“We got stuck in started buying stuff started flying around the world with just normal annual leave trips and then we bought some in America, some in England everywhere we could find Lemax we bought it.” https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=690&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52494.json&v=0.9109680206602037paragraphtitle: 81 Chamberlain Road, Padstow Heightshttps://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/multimedia-gallery/index.html?resizable=true&v=15&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/multimedia-gallery/52560.json&v=0.8182573784748334; size: large;Light up time: 7pm to 12amDisplay dates: December 1 to December 25Every December Tony Tarran, his wife Leigh, and their 7-year-old daughter Piper have to make way for a special guest: Big Santa.The giant inflatable, which is taller and half as wide as their home, looms over visitors with a commanding presence. “He’s a bit unique. No one else has got one that big,” Tony said. “We bought him off Facebook Marketplace, from a bloke out west somewhere … [Big Santa] was obviously a bit older, hes a bit dirty, but from far and at night, you cant tell really.” Taking the entire November and December period off to focus on installing the lights, Tony says while he loves his wife and daughters offers of help, he is the only one allowed to put them up.“Im very OCD with where things go and how neat they are, paranoid, so to say, if they cut the wires by accident,” he said.“For my daughter, whos seven now, she adores it, loves it. Obviously, its a big hit at her primary school. Everyone knows our house by the Big Santa.”Tarran says buying Big Santa five years ago was one of the centrepieces of his annual Christmas lights coup, which also coincided with his wife, Leigh, beating brain cancer. “I told my wife, ‘Righto, we’re going to get divorced, or you’re going to allow me to get Big Santa’,” Tony joked.“We got the attraction to get people here and try and raise a bit of money for brain cancer. I just feel like its my turn now to try and raise a few dollars for the next family that goes through what we did. Someone out there did it for us.” https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=570&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52493.json&v=0.5379506122539529paragraphtitle: 48 Beauchamp Road, Hillsdale Light up time: 7.30pm to 11.30pmDisplay dates: November 20 to December 31Russian Oxana Barteneva and her Ukrainian husband, Vlad Kyrylenko, cherish the peaceful skies above them throughout the year, but Christmas is especially joyful for the couple.“I love coming from work and being met with lights, and normally Im so tired, but so grateful to see all my lights,” Barteneva said.The couple met on holiday in Vietnam in 2011, before the war between the countries began, and they married the following year. Barteneva says she thanks her husband for saving her sons from having to fight in the war, which has already claimed loved ones.“My late grandfather, my late father and my late brother, who was killed in the Ukrainian war, were all electricians. So I want them to see my lights from above,” she said.Bartneneva sees her lights as a way to share happiness, even though most people only want to know how much her energy bill is. “We appreciate the peace and quiet in Australia, so we try to make our guests feel like they dont have to worry about any problems for a few minutes via the lights. But they always ask questions about how much the electricity bills will be,” she said. “I always say, dont worry about the problems, just enjoy and relax, its the cost of living. Even kids are asking how much electricity is!”https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=233&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52489.json&v=0.9814160672201732paragraphtitle: 13 Dunmore Street North, Bexleyhttps://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/multimedia-gallery/index.html?resizable=true&v=767&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/multimedia-gallery/52557.json&v=0.17758809633609796; size:large;Light up time: 6.30pm to 10pmDisplay dates: November 18 to December 28Sisters Sarah Mandile and Isabella Tannen took a week off school and work in November to put up this year’s lights, clocking in at 6am and out at 8pm, from Monday to Sunday.“During the year, its the darkest street there is – you wouldnt even think that that corner house has lights on it for a month of the year,” Mandile said.The joy Mandile’s labour-intensive display brings to the community means everything to her. However, putting up this year’s decorations wasn’t easy.“It was hard for us this year, we just came together – we put it on for everyone else because they cant just choose if theyre sick, they cant choose if it will be their last Christmas or not.“Weve got two tributes on the house for my two uncles, one is a massive sign that says one’s name, Pale, with a Kiwi fern underneath it, and its the brightest light on the house because he was the loudest in our family.“Weve also got a lantern for my other uncle, Jared, and it’s a silhouette picture from when he was in the army … the lights behind it, shining through, is a reminder that it doesnt matter whats happening in your life, theres always light at the end of the tunnel.”https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=943&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52450.json&v=0.2800916007413028paragraphtitle: 26 Nicholson Avenue, St IvesLight up time: 7pm to 11:30pmDisplay dates: December 1 to December 30If you ask most people how many lights they have up this Christmas, chances are, they couldn’t tell you. But if you ask Haimee and Andrew Code, they can give you the exact number: 25,000.“The minute we moved in, I would argue the planning began,” Haimee said. “I believe this is our fifth year doing lights.”The St Ives couple had always dreamt of putting up an elaborate Christmas lights display since they bought their home after living in an apartment.“Our favourite part this year is probably the thing that I initially said no to, which is the Grinch – it’s taller than my two-storey house for context. Weve got a six-metre mega tree in the front yard, and its taller than the tree!“I think its about eight metres, Andrew saw it online, and he was like, we have to have this. This is epic.”https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=880&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52488.json&v=0.15231867947501554paragraphtitle: 64 Chatsworth Road, St ClairLight up time: 7:30pm to 11pmDisplay dates: November 30 to December 25Having never grown up with Christmas lights, Vanessa Murray felt chuffed about the string she put around the gutter of her house and the reindeer she placed in her garden 13 years ago when she moved into her home.“Then it was like, next year well buy something else, and then it just started to get more and more each year. It became a bit of an addiction,” Murray said.Now, the illuminated tunnels, giant inflatable nutcracker arches and life-size gingerbread man beneath lights that spell out “JOY” are drawing in camera crews and feature across multiple nightly TV bulletins.“It feels good to be recognised because it’s a lot of hard work and effort,” Murray said. “Just to have the community and people from elsewhere turn up in our little suburb of St Clair.“We do two sausage sizzles at our house, and my neighbours, to raise funds for the charities … its a big event, every weekend is like a big street party.”https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=659&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52487.json&v=0.34120701313320956paragraphtitle: 49 Hurley Street, Toongabbiehttps://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/multimedia-gallery/index.html?resizable=true&v=333&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/multimedia-gallery/52561.json&v=0.7934805453499664; size:large;Light up time: 7.30pm to 10pmDisplay dates: December 1 to January 3Lauren Degan’s lighting display would be nothing without her CIO (Chief Inflatable Officer), aka, her nine-year-old niece, Vivienne.“Shes in charge of helping put the inflatables in place and standing them up when they fall over … and being able to show all the other children all about the lights,” Degan said.“Everythings been done for her.”On Boxing Day 2007, Degan returned to her parents’ home at night to find the lights she had spent hours stringing up destroyed by vandals. The incident rocked her so much it took a global pandemic to revive the spirit to illuminate her parents’ house again. But this time, it was going to be bigger, more elaborate – and no one was going to steal her Christmas joy.“When we had the COVID lockdown my then four-year-old niece Vivienne and I were talking about Christmas lights, and I told her how I used to do them, and she was like, ‘Can you do them again?’ I was like, you know what, I think I will.“Weve had a really rough two years with COVID lockdowns, lets bring some joy.”https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=730&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52486.json&v=0.4490890555024851paragraphtitle: 7 South Street, TempeLight up time: 8pm to 11pmDisplay dates: November 21 to December 31Most people spend the October long weekend going away, relaxing or partying. Not Valentina Mickovska, who begins to light up her home with meticulous dedication each October.“I change it up every year, and I love it. The joy it brings to people is amazing, the spirit, the fun, we sit out here with the neighbours. A lot of people, you don’t know what they go through, this brings them joy,” she said.Mickovska and her best friend, Alex, have decorated each others homes for 15 years, ever since their children went to primary school together and they became inseparable.“Were like sisters. We do everything together. She just lives up the road, so its easy; she comes out, and well brainstorm things during June, July,” she said.Mickovska’s house stands proud on her street, but she ensures her neighbours homes shine too.“We concentrate on my house, and once this is up and ready, we go to my mums house, and we do a little bit of the old mans house next door, just to get him involved. I help every neighbour; there are eight that I help out,” she said.https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=354&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52492.json&v=0.8119337821619932https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/multimedia-gallery/index.html?resizable=true&v=291&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/multimedia-gallery/52548.json&v=0.1807692344762415; size: largeparagraphtitle: Find some of the best Christmas lights close to youhttps://thearticlestack.com/interactive/modules/graphic-embed/?resizable=true&v=785&configUrl=https://thearticlestack.com/interactive/hub/configs/graphic-embed/52549.json&v=0.7140413353511316; size: largehttps://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2019/reader-poll/?resizable=true&v=256&pollId=5565