The best Belconnen Christmas lights – 2016 edition

After the success of last year’s Best Belconnen Christmas lights, I had to get back out and again experience one of the things that really makes this time of year feel like Christmas to me. Here are my Top 3 picks for 2016!

The best Belconnen Christmas lights

Every year I see the published lists of Christmas lights in Belconnen, and every year I feel overwhelmed by the choice and limited time to see them all (especially when I leave it to the last minute/week).

For me, the perfect Christmas lights experience is getting in as many ‘Wow, that’s awesome!’ houses before I get annoyed listening to the GPS and/or too many hours go past. Achieving this means knowing where the best houses are. Once you’ve knocked these over, you can enjoy the fantastic efforts of so many contributors throughout town – every house offers something magical!

So, if you’ve only got a limited amount of time before your patience runs out, here are my top three picks in Belconnen (and they’re all pretty close together!).

Chatterbox Espresso Bar – Redux

My review of one of Belconnen’s breakfast/brunch locations Chatterbox was one of my most read posts in 2014. But I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I’m so pleased that it’s been of such interest to people, and I know my recommendations about Chatterbox – on social media generally, and also through the review – have encouraged people to get along, and inevitably they keep heading back after they experience it for themselves.

On the other hand, it’s taught me just how a review in the first few weeks of a cafe opening can quickly become inaccurate, and I cringe re-reading parts of it. The review talks about how the avocado isn’t particularly generous and the potato is a little stodgy, but soon after I posted the review, owner Charlie took that feedback on board: for a year now the avo helpings have been enormous, and the potato rosti is one of the most popular orders.

And while I’m overly picky in that first post, for all of 2014 Chatterbox has consistently been our go-to. In fact, anytime I suggest we go elsewhere I get a look from Boyfriend and usually a declaration at the end of the other establishment’s meal that it wasn’t as good as Chatterbox and why do we even bother trying elsewhere?

So, a year later, it feels time to re-review.

The Cupping Room, Civic

The new breakfast (and lunch!) venue everyone’s been tweeting, Facebooking and talking about the last few weeks has been The Cupping Room in Civic. Figuring we had a chance of securing a table in the second week of January in Canberra, we arrive just past 10am to try it out.