The Grove is an upscale outdoor pedestrian shopping mall across the street from my apartment complex (but around a 15 minute walk from where I live, as I live in a very large complex.). I took a few photos yesterday of their very impressive and expensive Christmas decorations.
To me, even with Christmas decorations everywhere, it just doesn't feel like Christmas! This is my first Christmas in a warm climate, and it's making me realize just how important the environmental cues are for feeling "it's holiday time". I also find it a bit weird that there is no southern interpretation of the holiday in the decorations- everything is conifers, snowmen, and fake snow (which they have shoot out at intervals at the Grove, and I sure hope it's non-toxic as I did taste it- not snow, not cold, but suitably flavourless). It just doesn't fit the climate, and I think if they had something more suitable in flavour to the climate and geography, that maybe it would feel more like Christmas.
That's part of the farmer's market decked out in garland in the photo above, it's right next to the Grove.
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Hi N,
ReplyDeleteWell, Santa in his warm suit and the reindeer flying through the southern climate does look odd, but that one might even look odd up here. It is very wintery here, and today had a bitter feeling to the cold...it might not be so bad to spend one Christmas on the beach. We will miss your atmospheric decorations though.