This stretch of spring is full of grand expectations. And in Essex County’s Branch Brook Park (www.branchbrookpark.org) the countdown has begun: the tiniest of cherry blossoms are budding. 

We watched as an Asian family poured from a minivan with New York plates and posed for pictures by the first splashes of colorful flowers. “Not here yet,” said an elderly woman knowingly. “One more week.” In Japanese culture, cherry blossom season is a significant time of year.

Newark’s Branch Brook Park has the nation’s most varied collection of these flowering cherry trees, even larger than in Washington D.C., home of another famed annual display. When they explode in color, in a week or so, the effect is remarkable. 

To celebrate the blossoms Branch Brook hosts a series of events that bring thousands of visitors. The 32nd Annual Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival formally kicks off on Sunday, April 13, with a 10K Cherry Blossom Run. The event also includes a children’s run, and a run for the disabled. The celebration culminates in the Essex County Blossomfest on April 20, with a Family Day full of Japanese cultural activities including demonstrations on origami and bonsai.

The park is also in the midst of a multi-million dollar restoration and renovation, spearheaded by the Branch Brook Park Alliance and the county’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs. The public is asked to donate as well.

Branch Brook, the oldest county park in the nation, is nearly 360 acres. It was re-designed in its earliest stages to reflect the vision of famed landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted, the creator of Central Park. It is long and narrow, winding nearly four miles alongside scenic waterways.

The blossoms are just one reason to come to Branch Brook Park. There’s a roller rink, tennis courts, scenic bridges. Stand by the imposing sculptured lions and look across, through a spraying fountain, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart . It’s a stunning view of the state’s largest city… getting ready to flower, and host this annual party.

NJ My Way is proud to be the media sponsor of Branch Brook’s 2008 Cherry Blossom Festival.

The sky was an ominous dark gray, tornado weather. And even as it turned out there were no tornados (this isn’t Kansas anymore), the wind was so strong it knocked down utility poles.

But people still came to Collingswood (www.collingswood.com) last Saturday. They shopped in Haddon Avenue’s dozens of eclectic boutiques, ate at its fine restaurants, and checked out the art galleries. The one-day blow did not stop the monthly Second Saturday celebration in one of the hippest downtowns in New Jersey.

On Second Saturdays, downtown Collingswood stays open late. Some stores bring in musicians, like the trio playing Irish music among the pretty hand-painted furniture at Painted Cottage (www.paintedcottagestudio.com). Down the block at Jubili Beads & Yarns (www.jubilibeadsandyarns.com) crafters could find handfuls of just about anything they need. A few doors down visitors sipped wine and enjoyed cutting edge artwork at Fusion Gallery (www.fusionnj.com).

And everywhere, restaurants were hopping — visitors were eating French at Water Lily, (www.waterlilybistro.com), Cuban at Casona (www.mycasona.com), Mexican “influenced” at The Tortilla Press (www.thetortillapress.com), Italian seafood at Joe Pesce  (www.joepesce.net). Remember to BYO. Collingswood is a dry town.

It is also home to a Shakespearean theater company (www.collingswoodshakespeare.org) and the Collingswood Book Festival (www.collingswoodbookfestival.com), which attracted 20,000 attendees last year. It’s scheduled next for October 4.  

The borough wasn’t always this vibrant. As recently as the mid-1990s there were plenty of empty stores and it looked like downtown had lost the battle against specialized national retailers and the Cherry Hill Mall.

Then local folks committed themselves to pedestrian-oriented development. They refurbished luxury housing and obtained funds for preservation of historic buildings, which attracted upscale retailers and restaurateurs who loved the town’s early 20th century architecture.

In short, Collingswood got hot because it was so cool. Or was it the other way around? No matter. What counts is that this downtown is now one of the coolest and hottest in the state.

Before iTunes and MP3 players, digital sound and electronic keyboards, there were hand-tooled instruments capable of sounds that rocked the house. Literally.

If you want to see one of the oldest and largest examples, take the walking tour of beautiful and historic Wilson Hall at Monmouth University  (www.monmouth.edu/wilson_hall/default.asp).

The giant Beaux Art mansion houses a 1929 Aeolian opus 1677 Organ. The school says this surround-sound behemoth is the last remaining of its kind in the world. It is built right into the walls of the house.

In 1929, when Woolworth company president Hubert Templeton Parson reconstructed  the mansion (it was destroyed by fire), he incorporated the huge organ into the design.  On the second floor, you can peek through walls at the vast and intricate network of nearly five thousand pipes.

During that era, the organ was a status symbol for captains of industry; a vast music room was part of the palace blueprint. Kind of like the big-as-a-house game rooms you see on MTV’s Cribs.  A house organ told visitors your were, uhm, resoundingly successful.

The last time this amazing instrument was played was in the 1970s.  Now, the University is asking for help in a restoration project. The idea being, students of music will be inspired by seeing and hearing the organ.  

Take a walk through Wilson’s atrium, three stories of Italian marble crowned by an intricate stained glass ceiling, and you can imagine the lustrous organ music swirling through the place and bouncing off the gold-leafed walls. No question, it would be the jewel in this ornate, historic crown of a manse.

If you’d like to help, call the Office of University Advancement at (732) 571-3503. Self-guided walking tours of Wilson are available five days a week. Pack your lunch and sneakers, there are lots of steps and rooms to see. Close your eyes and you’ll hear the pipes calling… you’ll be moved, and maybe you’ll help make this more than an auditory illusion

Christmas is hard work for Mike Antreassian. But it’s a labor of love when the job is to spend 80 hours putting up 63,000 lights around his house in the hills overlooking Dover.

The dazzling holiday display brings hundreds of people to his block, seeking that spirit of Christmas they can’t get by shopping at even the fanciest mall.

They come to see the 35-foot tall “waterfall” of lights, the spiral that looks like a spinning Ferris wheel on the side of the house, the tall trees draped with bulbs, the Santa Alley children walk.  He also puts out an old fashioned school desk for kids to write letters to Santa, which they then deliver themselves: they clip the note to a rope and hoist it up with a pulley to a sleigh high on the Antreassian’s roof. Watch the video on www.njmyway!

Antreassian, an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal, has done something like this for two decades, and it keeps getting bigger: last year he put up “only” about 50,000 lights. He says he loves to see the wide-eyed children, and also the looks of happiness on the faces of their parents and even grandparents.  

“Sometimes there’s people not feeling too well,” he says of his visitors. But he has seen how his holiday spectacular “lifts up their spirit.”

It’s the best kind of Christmas gift—and don’t forget that for Antreassian it does not come cheap. At 4 Debbie Place in Dover (that’s the Dover in Morris County) you will see not just the beautiful lights, but also the electric meter spinning at a pretty fast clip.

Several other private homes around the state have spectacular Christmas displays. A couple of websites, www.christmaslightfinder.com and www.tackylighttour.com, let you search by zip code. Here are a few, from north to south:

13 Victoria Lane, Mahwah

136 Arnot St, Lodi

127 Hidden Trail, North Plainfield

58 King Ave., Marlton

Neighborhood at corner of North Ave. and Fourth Ave., Pitman

Got one of these in your neighborhood? Drop us a line or send us a photo by clicking on the link below. We’ll let everyone know about it;  even Santa might drop by to help you get into the spirit.