Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

When we show up, we win.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The lights are all blinking red.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road – Sister Golden Bear – Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens

On The Road – Sister Golden Bear – Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens

by | 30 Comments

This post is in: ,

On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Sister Golden Bear

Built in 1917, Filoli is considered one of the finest remaining country estates of the 20th century, featuring a 54,000+ square-foot Georgian revival-style mansion, 16 acres of exquisite English Renaissance gardens, a 6.8-acre Gentleman’s Orchard, and hundreds of acres of natural land, located, in Woodside, on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Every holiday season they put up extensive lights in the gardens, and the inside of the mansion is done up in true robber baron style.

BTW, On The Road usually gets posted long before I’m awake — being a West Coast jackal — but I’ll be sure to check in later in the day.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 8
On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 7
On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 6
The main pool

Not the actual moon, but a backdrop for the bench in front. It’s in an outdoor courtyard with booths selling mulled wine, hot chocolate and more.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 5

I was experimenting with using my iPhone 15 Pro Max for hand-held long exposure shots. This one was about 3 seconds, and the guy stepped into frame mid-exposure I’d hoped he would.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 4
On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 3

One of the things I love about photography is how makes me see more when I’m in a photo mindset. I sure thousands of people walked past this without paying any attention to it.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 2

The smaller of the two pools, with the mansion in the background.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens 1

I’m not sure the Chinese laterns were Christmas related, but they were beautiful. Inside the mansion the grand dinner room had some gorgeous tabletop exhibits about winter celebrations across multiple cultures, Christmas, Hannakuh, Kwanza, Arabic, Chinese, Japanse, etc.

On The Road - Sister Golden Bear - Holiday lights at the Filoli House and Gardens

Again, another low light hand-held shot.

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  2. 2.

    HinTN

    Beautiful! Thanks for the tour. I love the pool with the lighted tree in the background.

    These photographs demonstrate the inadequacy of my poor old S8’s camera. An upgrade is in my future!

  5. 5.

    Rileys Enabler

    Really gorgeous- thanks for sharing! Your photo of the gate with the ghostly guy walking by is stunning.

  6. 6.

    LiminalOwl

    Wow, thank you! Lovely pictures. And I’m kicking myself for never visiting Filoli while I lived in the Bay Area.

  8. 8.

    randy khan

    Thanks for these.  We visited Filoli in the daylight in June, so it’s really nice to see what they do to doll it up (not that it needs dolling up!) for the holidays.

  9. 9.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    I love light displays and I appreciated some of this was outside the standard Christmas fare. Subara Diane was right, these are very well framed.

  11. 11.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you for the beautiful photos and the reminder of Filoli. My favorite is the gorgeous time-lapse photo of the person at the gate!

    A friend of mine had a summer internship there as a groundskeeper – everything from operating the power mower to cleaning out bird cages.

    We went on the visitors’ tour a few weeks beforehand, as a sort of reconnaissance mission. :) The estate took its maintenance of the original, formal Italianate landscaping style very seriously.

    The tour guide told us that the name “Filoli” was made up from “Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.”

  17. 17.

    Mike in Pasadena

    The 70’s movie Heaven Can Wait made good use of Filoli. I rewatch every two years.  The logic of the overall plot was weak, but the humor is excellent. Diane Cannon saying, “I should be canonized” was perfectly corny yet well executed in deadpan style, which is how it must be done. Still makes me laugh almost fifty years later.

  18. 18.

    pieceofpeace

    I agree on your keen-eyed picture taking.  These are lovely shots.  Thanks!

    I’m going at some point to their Christmas display, as my home is not too far away.   They have a great gift shop geared toward indoor and outdoor gardening, with many live plants, large to seedlings.  And I believe they have classes regarding sustainable and healthy gardening, plus others, perhaps wreath-making, etc.

  19. 19.

    cope

    Beautiful, thanks.  To me, this time of year (solstice adjacent) it’s all about the lights. I put up lights on our new Colorado home, the first time in a long while I have done that.

    Our last few years in Florida were Christmas lightless except for cheesy laser projectors shining on our house and yard.  I find it much easier to suffer the struggle of choosing and stringing lights when the possibility of snow is greater than 0%.

    Thanks again.

  20. 20.

    way2blue

    @pieceofpeace:

    But of course, evening admission is booked through December.  I’ve never visited Filoli, but have been to Runnymede Farm, just down the road.  The family hosts fundraisers for various causes, and you can walk their 100+ acre sculpture garden.  (I may have submitted OTR photos of them.)  Now I need to visit Filoli…  Thanks for the nudge.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    These are magical.   I could feel my breathing slow as I was looking at the pictures with tears in my eyes.  So much beauty, just what I needed.

  23. 23.

    StringOnAStick

    You are so right that being in “photo taking mode” means seeing the world is a new way; that photo of the lit up tree trunks is lovely!  The last 3 photos especially speak to me.  Nice work.

    We’ve never put up Christmas lights before but the downsizing neighbor gave us hers and a timer, so I draped them around the mugo pine and holly bush.  I was surprised at how cheerful it felt to do so.

  24. 24.

    Origuy

    Thanks for the pictures. I’ve yet to make it to Filoli, although I’ve lived in the Bay Area for years. I have friends in the Red Thistle Dancers, who get dressed up in Victorian-era outfits and do Scottish dancing every year around Christmas at Filoli.

  25. 25.

    StringOnAStick

    @HinTN: I just upgraded to an 8s a year ago and thought that was a huge improvement, but a friend is going to upgrade so I’ll buy her 13, which should be a real jump up.

  27. 27.

    Comrade Colette

    Lovely pix! And thanks for the reminder that Filoli exists; I haven’t been there in years but I see there are still a few evening visits available in January so I’m going to grab one. Light in the darkness, a good thing regardless of what holidays one celebrates.

  28. 28.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Wonderful pix.  We’ve visited a couple of these kinds of holiday light garden events, and my pictures always end up looking pretty meh.  These are much better at capturing the beauty.  Thanks for sharing.

  29. 29.

    Quicksand

    I haven’t seen it mentioned in the post or comments, so I’ll just note that Filoli was the site of the summit between Biden and Xi Jinping just a few weeks ago as part of the APEC meetings.  A perfect location!

Comments are closed.