West Seattle Christmas lights, 12/05/07: Menashe video

| Holidays | West Seattle Christmas lights | West Seattle video

We featured the famous Beach Drive Christmas house with a photo on 11/28 … then this week, the Menashe family graciously allowed us to stop by and get a narrated tour, including answers to some of the questions everybody asks (such as, “how many lights?” — the big tree alone has 100,000!). The display’s on 4:30-11:30 pm every night through New Year’s, and its location is one of many on our special West Seattle Christmas lights map (you’ll find it on our new WSB Holidays page). First clip: Josh Menashe shows us what’s new, and talks about what it takes to put this together:

Here are 3 more clips, starting with a longer walk-through:

Now, some more behind-the-scene info from Josh Menashe, starting with the question they’re asked most often, ending with one of the most unusual things that’s ever happened at the display:

And we end with a closer look at one of the special features that might seem to get a little lost in the brightness at times … the creche, and the sign next to it:

(If you aren’t familiar with the family business, our question referred to the Menashes’ iconic jewelry shop, which they’ve operated in The Junction for more than 30 years.) Thanks again to the Menashe family for taking time to show us the sights; more West Seattle lights tomorrow night … send us your suggestions!

Karen December 5, 2007 (6:39 pm)

not getting these images – seems to be a problem lately

Sue L December 5, 2007 (7:35 pm)

Yes, here too. Can you please consider using some kind of video that works better than Myspace TV? It doesn’t work at all on my PC. Yes, it’s an older PC. No, I don’t want to run out and replace it, thank you. (YouTube and practically everything else works fine, by the way.) As you can tell I’m not one of these college kids who would rather die than be caught with a tech thingy five years old. O the fashion horror. Please think again.

Joe December 5, 2007 (9:41 pm)

all 4 videos worked fine on my computer

David December 5, 2007 (9:52 pm)

The video does just fine on our Mac. Very nice to hear Josh tell about the decorations and new additions. What a nice treat they give us West Seattleites each year!

LA in the Junction December 5, 2007 (10:06 pm)

Thanks for the interviews and up close video. I agree though, the MySpace TV leaves a lot to be desired. Unless you have a sponsorship with MySpace, YouTube is a much better option. The current video is jerky and the audio is terrible. But we love WSB!

chas redmond December 5, 2007 (10:46 pm)

I think these area great – what a great and giving family and what a great tradition they’ve created. We always drive by there on the foggiest night we can just because it makes the whole scene so surreal and mystical. What a perfect gift from a jeweler, too.

On the TV thing – the Mac I’m using with Comcast seems to always do fine on WSB with the myspace videos but sometimes has to be kicked in the side to get the Slog utube things to run. Probably just some tweaky code some geek hasn’t seen yet to fix.

I do know that OS-X and NT/XP/Vista each require some code tweaks in the web display area for them to work seamlessly and sometimes we suffer when that seam stops us. Sorry. I think WSB is doing a great job of capturing the events and the feel of West Seattle. I hope our hosts are thinking of ways of both archiving this stuff and making it available maybe as a ‘best of DVD” – great idea for a Street Festival give-away and I’d certainly give a reasonable penny for a hard copy of some of these videos in album format.

WSB December 5, 2007 (11:32 pm)

LA — we would disclose anyone with whom we had a sponsorship. actually we switched to the myspacetv hosting site because all the youtube stuff we originally posted looked like h**l. and we view it on two computers — a PC and a Mac – both are a couple years old. but we’re still exploring other options as an actual business that would like to get pageview credit for the video plays so bear with us as we keep looking to see what’s better out there! maybe if this is really a problem for a lot of people (the two comments here are the first complaints we’ve had) we can take time to post them on myspace and on youtube and provide links to both.

Aidan Hadley December 6, 2007 (12:06 pm)

Sue L: Technology is something that evolves rapidly. I’m not sure I’d agree with your notion that staying current is nothing more than staying “fashionable.” We should consider ourselves fortunate for the kind folks who produce the WS Blog (for free), as opposed to making perhaps unreasonable requests to keep the content sufficiently dumbed down to suit the Luddites. If you have no interest in keeping current with the technology, then perhaps you should resign yourself to skip over the video and just look at the content that you are able to read with your existing capabilities. Or maybe you can ask the WS bloggers to do separate editions by telegraph and smoke signals :-)

WSB December 6, 2007 (12:24 pm)

We think we’ll skip that, Aidan, we’re pedaling as fast as we can now! But re: current technology, many of you would probably laugh at what we are working with. Even our newest Mac has a couple years in its rear-view mirror now (and is bogged down with video clips and photo files since we’re the digital equivalent of pack rats). We are asking Santa to drop something newer, faster, more memory-laden down the chimney :) …

Sue L December 6, 2007 (1:10 pm)

Aidan, my old PC and I can see movie trailers nice and clearly in “480p” size but not the larger ones. So yes, we’re a few years older and sadder than when it was shiny new. But WSB’s clips are way smaller than that, even. So I guess I’ll have to chalk this problem up to bratty Myspace programmers in their 20’s with bad attitudes, that are purposely making it not work with my perfectly good PC! Well, have fun and Merry Christmas.

WSB December 6, 2007 (4:16 pm)

Actually MySpace offers the embeds at 480 x 386 but that is just a tiny bit too big for this page so we resize them to 400 x 326.

GenHillOne December 6, 2007 (5:29 pm)

SueL – have you dumped (not tossed…) your cookies lately? Deleting cookies, held form info, etc. in the Tools tab sometimes helps with video viewing.

Sue L December 6, 2007 (8:34 pm)

Hi, actually I’m about to bake some oatmeal cookies. The computer cookies all go away when I close the browser. Speaking of more or less Christianic videos, I just watched the Prince Caspian trailer, and it’s a pretty showy world they’ve painted. The colors and scenes are all bigger, brighter and more colorful than I remember seeing in my head when I read the books when I was 10. I remember them traveling on foot a lot through ordinary brushy woods, and here are these dramatic vistas and theatrical gee-whiz moments everywhere. Very dramatic looking even in the smallest wide screen size. It didn’t take long at all to download either. How can Movie List send such a large clear video and it’s so hard for MySpace to do a small one right? Anyway, it’s fun to watch. I’ve watched it three times. Coming to every conceivable theater next May.

Bonnie December 10, 2007 (2:17 pm)

The Christmas lights at the Menashes is what makes Christmas!!!

The Big Dog December 10, 2007 (2:28 pm)

Josh you are a huge dork. I still love you though. GO COUGS

A BONNIE BABE December 10, 2007 (2:29 pm)

THE MENASHE CHRISTMAS DISPLAY BRINGS A SMILE TO MY FACE EVERY TIME I DRIVE BY THROUGHOUT THE HOLIDAY SEASON. THANK YOU JACK,WINDA & FAMILY!!!

I love this time of year! « Beccalou December 10, 2007 (6:32 pm)

[…] Fortunately, someone else got photos, video and and interview from last year’s display! Check it out. There was a house back home on Washout Road that went all out. But I think this might beat […]

nerd’s eye view » Blog Archive » West Seattle Christmas Lights Extravaganza! December 23, 2007 (4:39 pm)

[…] down California towards the ferry dock (or is it Barton?). And we found the absolutely overdone Menashe House (yikes) and this subtle little number. More […]

Yaowalak December 25, 2007 (7:34 pm)

I can see the video perfectly using a Mac, it looks better than youtube. Thanks!!!!!!

gwen December 2, 2008 (9:10 pm)

I would like to know the address to th Menashe home to see the lights with my family. I tryed to find the map that says where the address would be listed but I can’t find it can you help me?

WSB December 2, 2008 (9:41 pm)

hi – it’s in the 5600 block of Beach Drive. closer to the south end of Beach Drive (take Lincoln Park Way down to Beach Drive, turn right – north- and it’s within a mile) than the other side, but if you come from the north end of beach drive, it’s between Jacobsen and Lincoln Park Way. maybe 2 miles south of Alki Point. hope that helps?

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