Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice
Went out on an errand this afternoon as the sun began to set. At 4:00 pm. When I hit Round Lake, I saw a car in the rear view. It had something on top. A Christmas tree. We have one of the metro’s favorite cut your own tree places about 6 miles north of us.
This triggered two memories. The first, which you’ve encountered if you’ve traveled in the tropics during Christmas, is the jarring sight of Christmas trees, wreaths and lights all atwinkle at 80+ degrees. In Rio they have applied to Guiness for certification of their floating Christmas tree in the big lake near the funicular for Corcovada (muy grande Jesus). It’s supposed to be the biggest. Among a crop of how many floating Christmas trees, I wonder?
An oddity I realized in Rio was that most of these Christmas decorations have a fir or pine as their exemplars. That was the trigger with the Christmas tree on the car. When I took my trip to Southeast Asia seven years ago, I was in Singapore at this time. Same strange thing. Christmas trees, wreaths, Christmas tree decorations all sprouting from vertical shopping malls in the air conditioned nation.
The second memory triggered by the car with the Christmas tree was the sight of golf carts all loaded up on flat bed trucks headed south for the winter season. Soon we’ll have the rickety trucks coming to town piled high with cut wood sold door to door for fire places.
We do have a very distinct culture here and it’s visible to me right now, with South America so present to me.
One guy on the cruise asked me about ice fishing. Seems the word of our palatial fish houses has spread to the larger world.
Yeh, you betcha, we’re our own culture up here. For sure.
