So tonight (Arrgh! It’s still December 5th! Why is WordPress slugging it as the 6th?) came the annual Holiday Stroll and lighting of the Christmas tree in Albuquerque’s Old Town. Since I love the Christmas season, especially the lights and trappings, it’s been my long-standing tradition to attend with my friend Joe.
The tree was to be lit at 6:15. I’d arranged to meet Joe in the Basket Shop at 5:45. I got there late because I got caught writing on my latest Annja book, which nears completion very soon. As I was walking from my parking spot on a side street south and east of OT, I got a call from Joe. He was walking in with his daughter from north and east. So our timing was good.
There seemed more cars than usual. I thought the crowd gathered by Plaza Don Luis on the west side of OT, where the tree had been built of something like 130 smaller trees, was bigger than usual, too. Big enough that Joe and his daughter couldn’t get through the crowd, and had to detour back around through the main Plaza.
But we all got together fine. I mentioned to Joe I thought the crowd was extra-large; he didn’t think it was larger than normal. I suggested that if it was bigger one reason might be that it’s free.
“But it’s always free,” he pointed out.
I observed that in this economy, people might be especially looking for free opportunities to get their festive on. He pointed out that the fact it was not too cold and the wind was calm probably contributed. Which I’m sure is true.
Juana Inez, Joe’s daughter, wanted to watch from the balcony overlooking Plaza Don Luis. So we went up. It gave us a close, if not exactly top-to-bottom look at the tree. plus a good view of the main Plaza with its lit-up gazebo and lightings displays and crowds.
So we counted down to the lighting. Naturally after we got to “one”, it didn’t light. But then it did light, a beat or two late, and everyone cheered.
We hit our usual long-time favorites: the Candy Lady, where I snagged a sample of their great red chile fudge. The Christmas Shop, which was somewhat blockaded by an all-female mariachi group out of Santa Fe called Buenaventura, who were very good, although in the way. The Christmas Shop, as always, had much wonderful stuff. They also had a couple of ornaments, I think from Germany, which consisted of two faces, one upside down, one right side up, and joined at the mouth so that you could hang them either way, to display a happy face or an angry face. Either way they were some of the most disturbing damn things I’ve ever seen.
We also hit Saints & Martyrs, which is a cool little shop devoted to Catholic religious art and artifacts, mostly from Latin America, and hung out and talked with the people who ran it for a while. Then we nipped into the little courtyard behind it to visit the Lady Chapel there.
Joe and Juana Inez took their leave and headed out. I did too, a little more deliberately, poking into some of the other little courtyards half-hidden along the east side of OT. Enjoying the lights and the crowds and the music. Which ranged from Buenaventura to more traditional (i.e., male, drunk) mariachis, to kid choirs, to a bluegrass trio, and finishing, in the last little courtyard there at the southeast corner, with a middle-aged rocker soloing on electiric guitar – because nothing says Christmas in New Mexico like Jimi Hendrix’s “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire.”
He was pretty good, too, actually. I was amused that the rather fluid crowd he attracted ranged from old rock”n’rollers like me to high school kids, all of whom seemed to listen appreciatively.
I checked into the Card Shop to say hi to my friend Sharon, who clerks there and I think manages the place. Also admired some of their own line of silk-screened Christmas cards in southwestern designs, which are really excellent, and wished the cash flow allowed me to split for a package or two.
Then. tired, footsore, and happy (I also did some shopping today, did some repairs on my waterbed, bought a potted rosemary for a Christmas tree, and walked Emma on Bear’s Ditch) I headed back to the car. And then home. Where I just barely managed to summon the energy to write this…
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Several years ago (based on a theory about the Star of Bethlehem that I don’t really believe, but I do find it amusing), I built a “Christmas UFO” and deployed it over my front yard. Over the years, I’ve either rebuilt existing ones, or assembled completely new ones. I use steady strings, chasing strings, and flashing LED circuits, mounted in/on things like translucent plastic bowls and hula hoops.
A neighbor told me once that he’d been watching the cars cruising our street, looking at the various Christmas lighting displays. The cars would come to a yard, slow down, then speed up a bit until they got to the next yard that had a display, where they’d slow down again.
But when they got to my yard, they’d STOP.
I light it up for Halloween too. It tends to impress the parents more than the kids.
- M. \”/
Yeah. The Star of Bethlehem seems mighty persistent for a UFO.
(“Hey, Sprtlfx! Why we parkin’ way the Hell up here?” “So the damn locals won’t egg the ship.”)
Your display sounds pretty impressive. You should put pictures up on Flickr or some such.