There's something strange this year. I've been to this parade in past years and this time it was weirdly quiet and subdued. At the beginning of December I was in NYC to teach a workshop and didn't find any subjects to make a picture for a holiday card. A friend who stopped by the workshop on Sunday mentioned that the day before he'd walked down Fifth Avenue, past all the famous department store windows, and found them so dull and drab that he actually asked if the "Christmas windows" hadn't been installed yet. Nope, that was them. I notice Martina and Markus are commenting on similar impressions over in Germany. Strange.
It's not that I miss the cheap inflatable Santa Claus and multi-coloured LED lit reindeer in every frontyard. I have no idea why decorations are so modest and humble this season. I fear it's not the return of good taste ... perhaps people simply got bored? In Germany these extreme decorations always have been an imitation of the American style. A christmas tree with white lights was what people put in their frontyards for decades. If anything at all. Nothing else. Let's see. I am happy to look outside, it's night, it's dark and only in one window some 20m away you see a Schwibbogen
Hmm, yes, I thought they might be known in the US, too, since there is even an English wikipedia article. But I bet in the next days you will see them everywhere ;-)
5 comments:
What a sad, lonely picture; well done!
There's something strange this year. I've been to this parade in past years and this time it was weirdly quiet and subdued. At the beginning of December I was in NYC to teach a workshop and didn't find any subjects to make a picture for a holiday card. A friend who stopped by the workshop on Sunday mentioned that the day before he'd walked down Fifth Avenue, past all the famous department store windows, and found them so dull and drab that he actually asked if the "Christmas windows" hadn't been installed yet. Nope, that was them. I notice Martina and Markus are commenting on similar impressions over in Germany. Strange.
It's not that I miss the cheap inflatable Santa Claus and multi-coloured LED lit reindeer in every frontyard.
I have no idea why decorations are so modest and humble this season.
I fear it's not the return of good taste ... perhaps people simply got bored?
In Germany these extreme decorations always have been an imitation of the American style. A christmas tree with white lights was what people put in their frontyards for decades. If anything at all. Nothing else.
Let's see. I am happy to look outside, it's night, it's dark and only in one window some 20m away you see a Schwibbogen
That's pretty neat. I don't think I've ever seen one, which seems strange when you consider how large a percentage of Americans have German ancestry.
Hmm, yes, I thought they might be known in the US, too, since there is even an English wikipedia article.
But I bet in the next days you will see them everywhere ;-)
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