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Friday Slide Show: Holiday Scenes
21 December 2018
We're in both the camp that dreads the holidays and the camp that loves them. As the years go by, though, the dread diminishes and the joy multiplies.
The trick to multiplying the joy is appreciating the small things that belong to the season. We each have our own list of those small things. We've linked to a few we've found helpful over the years. And today's slide show has more of ours.
They're little stories more than captions, so we'll explain them a bit here:
The Tree. We'd love the convenience of an artificial tree (and we'd keep it up much longer) but dealing with the imperfections of a real tree (mutants, we tend to call them) prepare us for the holiday. The top is rarely straight, one side has shorter branches, the trunk may be curved at the bottom. You deal with it in the garage when you get the thing home. Then you stand back to admire your work. And this year we even photographed it.
Muni. We always take Muni downtown to take photos for our Christmas cards. And many of the drivers decorate their cars. This fellow, driving a historic Boston streetcar down Market St., had a string of lights above his windshield.
Goodwill. Goodwill to men, right? Well, we like to hit the Goodwill on Haight St. for discard decorations. That Santa you'll see later in the slide show is one of them. This set made us smile because they are still together.
Big Ornaments. Our friend Lee Harrison, who has quite a Flickr Photostream, shot these ornaments at 101 Calfornia and we thought we'd flatter him with a little imitation. Harrison taught us how to develop 35mm film. And how to print it. And we've never forgiven him.
The Garden Court. We rarely skip a visit to the Palace Hotel for a peek at the decorations in the Garden Court, which used to be the main entrance where the horses and buggies turned around. It's now a nice restaurant with a gorgeous glass ceiling.
Rudolph. You've seen our glass Rudolph before on Photo Corners but for this shot, which we used for some Christmas cards, we set him in some fake snow at night.
Menorah. Our friends' menorah had every candle lit the night we visited them. You've seen this before, too.
Bloomingdale's. The entrance to the store sparkled and, in a better world, would inspire friendlier airport security scanners.
St. Patrick's. This little brick church moved across Mission St. (and down a block) after the 1906 quake and still holds a noontime mass to calm the nearby office workers who could just kill their boss.
Crate & Barrel Window. We like to visit the store windows around Union Square but just didn't get much of a chance this year. What we did see wasn't very impressive but we liked this.
Santa. Our Goodwill Santa was staged to look like he's carrying his bag of toys and goodies through the night. You rarely find these Goodwill treasures unblemished but with a little paint you can restore them to their original brilliance.
Gas Meter Window. More interesting than the shop windows this year were some home decorations we whizzed by. We wish we gone back one night to shoot the three life-size polar bears posed in an upstairs window but we didn't go back after seeing them one afternoon. But we did get this gas meter window (meters are all WiFi now) repurposed for the holidays.
Snow Globe. Our friends' snow globe caught our attention because, well, that's the only way you get a white Christmas around here.
The Tree. The lights strung and the ornaments hung, we wish we could keep the tree up all year as some sort of sculpture or jewelry. We turn it on in the morning for the school kids hustling up the block before 8 a.m. and we turn it on at night to inspire long-ago memories and conjure up hopes for the future.
Speaking of which, the merriest of holidays and happiest of new years to you. And thanks for making time for us now and then.
