Anthony Hawwa’s home Christmas light display, featuring 7,000 bulbs, might be more extravagant than most but, when it comes to the date of taking them down, he’s a proud traditionalist. He makes sure everything is boxed up and put away just after 7 January, the date Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas, every year.
“I find it wild that some people take their decorations down on Boxing Day,” says the freelance TV producer, whose annual light shows have made him something of a local celebrity on his street. For the past five years, Hawwa has gone all-out on decorating his two-bedroom cottage in Sydney. Think thousands of LED lights programmed to a carefully selected list of Christmas songs, all controlled by a set of buttons on the fence outside. “The kids in the street love it – every night before bedtime they come and stand at the front fence, pressing all the buttons. One of the kids next door basically made himself the project manager, at one point,” he says.
