[1] The Highlands along Bardstown Road, Baxter Avenue and Barret Avenue was the place to be Saturday night for the 27th annual Bardstown Road Aglow, the yearly kick-off to the Christmas season in the Louisville neighborhood occurring on the first Saturday of December. This would also be my first Aglow, and I got the opportunity to do it big by filling in for Louisville.com [3] editor-in-chief Zach Everson [4] for the Holiday Decoration Contest.
I descended upon Winston’s Restaurant at Sullivan University via TARC – who allowed riders to ride for free if they wore a red ribbon in honor of World AIDS Day; Aglow just happened to occur on the same day this year – fifteen minutes before 5 p.m., where Caroline Knop of Simply PR greeted everyone involved with the judging, including “The Bar Belle” Sara Havens of LEO and Michelle Arnold of WHAS-TV among others. A drink and a few hors d’oeurves later, and the group of 20 boarded a bus parked outside the restaurant, where goodie bags filled with bottles of Four Roses Single Barrel, gift cards from Bearno’s and ValuMarket [5], and more awaited us.
While Aglow itself is nearly 30, the decoration contest – where participating businesses competed for the titles of Business Appropriate, Grand Prize and Griswold – has been around for a couple of years. My top pick from what I recall would be Keith’s Hardware display, where not only was the store Griswold-worthy, the Volkswagen Type II parked out front was also wonderfully aglow. Also: bourbon-enhanced Wendy’s Frostys need more work before they’re ready for primetime.
After the judging came to a close, I was dropped off at Bardstown and Eastern Parkway, where I saw everything from Luigi and an existential stack of boxes watched over a Galaga arcade game at Heine Bros. to a Honda Civic art car pull into the parking lot of Mid City Mall.
I can’t wait to do it again next year. Maybe Zach and I should tag-team?
Photos: Louisville.com/Cameron Miquelon.
