[Photo courtesy June Carter Cash Peep/GL Flickr Pool]

Clearly, our favorite park was spectacular looking yesterday.

From our lounge to your house, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! There’s holiday stuff below if you’re in the mood.

[Image courtesy of pabs35/flickr]

It’s called Caro Montanaro Christmas.

[Photo courtesy of OrliPix/fickr]

It is colorful and noisy.

[Photo courtesy of Alivin’s Postcards/flickr]

Almost like Dyker Heights, but Bensonhurst.

“just as i was leaving my apt. for the holidays i was met by an IDT employee, who apologized for coming on christmas and proceeded to go through the whole sales pitch. i declined and he moved on, but it was weird nonetheless. just want people to be alert for this.” [GL Inbox]

[Image courtesy of Kristof Van Landschoot/flickr]

We wish every GL reader happy holidays and a Merry Christmas. If you’re traveling today, be safe. We wish to send special Christmas Warmth to our invaluable contributors, both current ones, and those that have left us. We also send special thanks to our Curbed colleagues, including our #1 supporter Lockhart Steele and our daily partner in blogging Joey Arak. All the best to our friends at Eater and at Racked. But most of all, to all of you who read GL, whether you agree with us or strongly disagree, whether you like us, love us or hate us, we wish you peace and happiness, wherever you may be. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas.

[Image courtesy of Alex ’77/flickr]

Venezia at Christmastime during the phenomenon known as aqua alta (high water or, flooding, to you and me).

Tips, photos and information from readers are the lifeblood of GL, just like other blogs. So, send us your tips. We always love hearing from our readers when they see or hear something interesting of get an interesting photo of something going on in their neighborhood. We like to span Brooklyn so all neighborhoods are of interest to us. All tips are absolutely confidential, unless you specifically want to be credited, in which case, please say so. You can reach us via thegowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com or the handy contact form you will find under the GL banner. We try to specialize in original news rather than copying what’s already been posted or published, so your help is ultra-important!!! Thanks for reading, thanks for helping and thanks for being part of the online community we trying to build.

[Photo for GL courtesy of E.C. Stephens]

No Christmas Eve would be complete without photos of Gowanus and thanks to E.C. Stephens we have some.

There are more ahead.

[Photo courtesy of Meg Groome]

Meg writes of this photo: “I shot a lot of photos of Prospect Park in the snow last weekend. This is one of my favorites, a face on the central fountain in Concert Grove.”

Coney Island woke up on this Christmas Eve morning to huge FOR LEASE signs affixed to every building on the boardwalk. All the photos above are courtesy of Pablo Jonesy who was out there at 7:30 this morning. Apparently owners will be offered new leases by December 30, but the rumor is that rents may skyrocket. There is a conference call said to be scheduled today. Per an email, “This may just be a tactic move on Thors part to push city and owners. We hope.” Us too.

We’ve had this one on the server for weeks and, well, today is the day for it.

[Photo courtesy of Montreal Michael/flickr]

Our favorite Williamsburg eating spot, Kellogg’s Diner has been all done up for the holidays. And what a job they’ve done. We’re foregoing Brooklinks this morning so we can go out and run soggy Christmas Eve errands and letting the diner do the talking.

There’s a Kellogg’s photo gallery ahead.

We had a very long and very pleasant chat yesterday evening with New York City Council Member David Yassky, with whom we have had some strong policy disagreements over the years and whose intellect and public policy credentials we have always respected. We will write more about our conversation with Mr. Yassky, when more people are tuned in, particularly his views on North Brooklyn development as the economy changes. In the meantime, we invited him, in the spirit of the season to make a brief holiday greeting.

We don’t have the full story of what happened in Coney Island yesterday, except that the we got a phone message from Diana carlin (Lola Staar) that people were being evicted. Meanwhile, photos we being posted on the Coney Island Message Board of “For Lease” signs going up on all the boardwalk businesses. One is tempted to start writing things about Scrooge and the insanity of doing something like this two days before Christmas, but we’ve also seen comments that new leases will be forthcoming. And comments that rents may triple. We will try to get more information and update if we can, but it’s Christmas Eve. (All photos are courtesy of Captain Jonesy on the Coney Island Message Board.) The signs speak for themselves. The question is what is goiing on.

[Photo courtesy of mikkime/GL Flickr Pool]

Ah, McCarren Park lit up at night in the snow. We love you.