So instead I thought I would include a couple of photographs of sandy figures, which are more relevant than snowmen are to an Australian Christmas. We usually spend at least part of our Christmas summer break at the beach, and the first photo shows our youngest daughter aged 3 in 1990, buried up to her neck in sand, with exaggerated creations for arms and feet.
The second photo is one I took a few years later at the San Diego Zoo in December 1996, when we took the children for a family driving holiday in the USA visiting San Diego, Arizona, Utah and Nevada before returning to LA and of course Disneyland. This professionally sculpted lady hippo was adorned with a Christmas garland in honour of the festive season. I wonder what the real hippos in their nearby enclosure thought of her.
There was no snow to be seen in San Diego, but we did come across some of the white stuff in both the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon National Park, where the thousands of strangely shaped natural pinnacle type structures called hoodoos were surrounded by tinged with drifts of white. With a little imagination, they could look like crowds of standing figures. The local Native American tribe believes the hoodoos were once the ancient Legend People, who were turned to stone because they had abused the land and its resources. Here are a few photos in both black and white and in colour, in which the snow stands out more clearly.
We'll be up at the beach for a few days next week, so just in case I don't manage to fit in another blog before we go, here's wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and happy holiday season from Turner Street, where one of our neighbours sneaked out in the dark of night last week and decorated all of the fifty plus plane trees that line the street. Quite an impressive effort which must have taken quite a while to complete and would have required many metres of red ribboning fabric! These big trees provide us with a lovely shady canopy in summer but they also make for lots of exercise when we have to sweep up enormous and seemingly endless piles of fallen leaves in autumn.
For more blogs on this snowy theme, or not, just click and go toSepia Saturday #347
10 comments:
Love that hippo! :) The pictures of Grand and Bryce Canyons in the snow are beautiful. And of course your daughter as the sand lady is both cute and clever. But the red ribbons around the trees along your street reminds me of 'downtown' Groveland (where we used to live). Every Christmas, every single post and railing along the route (roughly 3 blocks long) is covered with silver foil, then striped with red ribbon. It looks like you're in a silvery candy cane land. We used to joke if you were in town while the decorators were doing their thing, if you stood still too long, you'd find yourself covered in foil and red ribbon!
Hurray for the neighbor sharing the spirit of Christmas. It's hard for me to picture Christmas in summer, not that it gets all that cold here in Virginia. I guess it's the result of years of Christmas movies and Christmas cards that make me associate Christmas with snow and cold. I watched a Christmas movie recently set in sunny California where the characters were in shorts, enjoying the beach, and flocking their palm trees with fake snow. Mind warp.
I think I'd miss snow and cold! But the red ribbons around the trees are festive, indeed!
Fabulous post! Living in the northern hemisphere, I find it difficult to imagine Christmas being anything other than cold (although a white Christmas seems to be the exception rather than the norm in my neck of the woods) but I love the inclusion of sand sculptures instead. I've seen some amazing sand artwork at the beach -- such incredible talent! I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas!!
As the daughter of a Canadian, warm Christmas seems so foreign to me. As it is my mother still comments, after 50 years in the States, about Christmas lights with next to no snow for them to reflect off of (in southern New York State). Love the sand sculptures and your hoodoo photos, they are gorgeous. I had never heard of hoodoos before. It's a wonder we're not all turned to stone, but I digress.
Besides the difference in temperature for your Christmas down under, there is also the difference in light. I noticed it on my first winter in Britain when the sun set much earlier in December than in the US latitudes.
Great photos...love the green trees with red ribbons, so bright. And the hippo is definitely a winning sand sculpture. But my heart goes back to a visit many years ago (summertime) to Bryce Canyon. How lovely it looks with snow! Where I now live in Appalachia, the mountain people use the term "hoodoo" to describe the magic that their grannies used to practice, like use of herbs and how to birth babies.
You may not have snow at Christmas, but you gave us an enjoyable post of memories - I did smile at the garlanded hippo. And I bet the neighbours smiled waking up to the red ribboned trees.
Great idea to turn the prompt on its head and use sand instead of snow to showcase the sculptures. It’s much the same here as it never snows in Lanzarote, and people do make sculputres on the beach. The tree dressing was something else!
What a lovely neighborhood street! One of those places that time has taken care of. And you've chosen one of my favorite parks, Bryce. I don't know if you had the opportunity to walk down into it, but it is beautiful and amazing. I still recall the sound of a crow flying over as I walked along a very narrow pathway between the colorful formations.
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