{"id":245599,"date":"2012-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/mr-as-christmas-lights-a-holiday-tradition\/"},"modified":"2012-12-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T08:00:00","slug":"mr-as-christmas-lights-a-holiday-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/mr-as-christmas-lights-a-holiday-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. A\u2019s Christmas lights: a holiday tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Moye | SDUN Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of San Diego\u2019s most beloved holiday traditions is celebrating its 47th year: the \u201cMister A\u2019s Holiday Display\u201d high atop the Mr. A\u2019s building on Fifth Avenue and Laurel Street in Bankers Hill.<\/p>\n

On clear nights, the lights can be seen all the way down to Tijuana, Mexico, as far north as La Jolla and even over in Point Loma, which is exactly what the display\u2019s creator, original building owner John Alessio, intended, his son Bud Alessio said.<\/p>\n

\"Mr.
The holiday lights at the top of Mr. A\u2019s can be seen in Tijuana, Mexico. (Photo by Anulak Singphiphat)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t much up here in Uptown back in 1965,\u201d Bud Alessio said, who is now the building\u2019s current owner. \u201cSo it made us stand out even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Alessio created the display as a beacon for the area\u2019s children, his son said, and every Thanksgiving night since 1965 the lights are turned on \u2013 often covered live on local news \u2013 and are taken down a week after New Year\u2019s Day, like clockwork.<\/p>\n

Getting the lights ready is not a simple task, Bud Alessio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had one man start putting up the lights four weeks ago,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the last three months, 90 percent of his job was checking out the lights, making sure they worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do not ask how many lights were checked or how many are on the building, because Bud Alessio said he has lost count.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question I\u2019m always asked, but they\u2019ve been changed so many times. I\u2019ll sometimes say, \u2018Add another strand there,\u2019 but I can\u2019t tell you how many,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The lights themselves have changed, too. For eight years after 9\/11, the displays featured a red, white and blue motif, but the last three years have returned to the traditional holiday colors.<\/p>\n

Also, slowly but surely, older lights have been replaced with more energy-efficient LED lights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be all LED by next year,\u201d Bud Alessio said.<\/p>\n

The holiday lights are perhaps best appreciated outside the building, but Bertrand Hug, who runs the rooftop restaurant Bertrand At Mr. A\u2019s, said the view is just as amazing from the restaurant\u2019s deck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s a slight amount of fog, the lights make an imprint in the sky, almost like a collage,\u201d Hug said. \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing thing, this beacon in the city, and I feel like I\u2019m the beneficiary of this great tradition.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Moye | SDUN Reporter One of San Diego\u2019s most beloved holiday traditions is celebrating its 47th year: the \u201cMister A\u2019s Holiday Display\u201d high atop the Mr. A\u2019s building on Fifth Avenue and Laurel Street in Bankers Hill. On clear nights, the lights can be seen all the way down to Tijuana, Mexico, as […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":848,"featured_media":245600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Mr. A\u2019s Christmas lights: a holiday tradition","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}