“The huge fir tree in the center carried many gold and silver apples, and, like buds and blossoms, the sugared almonds and colorful bonbons and goodness knows what other tidbits emerged from all the branches. However, the loveliest and most praiseworthy feature of the wonder tree was the myriad of tiny lights that twinkled like tiny stars in its dark boughs….
“And the tree itself, shining in and out, warmly invited the children to pick its blooms and fruits. Around the tree, everything shone very grand and bright — what gorgeous things there were — why, who could describe them all?”
“[In Ukraine] … the holidays start on December 4th with the Feast of the Presentation, through to Malanka, a New Year’s celebration.
“A Ukrainian legend is shared about a family who were so poor they couldn’t afford to decorate their Christmas tree. They went to bed feeling sad, but during the night spiders came out of the woodwork, and wove intricate webs on the tree as decorations….
“The following morning, the sun’s rays shone through the windows, turning the spiders’ webs into sparkling silver and gold.”
“The 6 December is the Feast of St Nicholas, a saint whose real history — the little that is known of it — would seem to make him unlikely material for one of the best loved of all Christian saints…. He became a monk, an abbot and eventually the archbishop of Myra and … also became the patron saint of an extraordinarily diverse number of people including the Russian nation, virgins, children, Aberdeen, parish clerks, pawnbrokers, boatmen, fishermen, dockers, coopers, brewers, scholars, travellers, pilgrims, those who had unjustly lost lawsuits and even thieves.
“His transformation into Father Christmas — aka Santa Claus — was a gradual one. Because of his own generosity, he was very much associated with the giving of presents. So on the eve of his feast day, children would put out hay and carrots for his horse and, in return, they would receive a present from him the next morning….
“Present giving in the depths of winter was not just a Christian tradition. The Romans did the same thing during their Saturnalia festival and the Vikings’ Woden would deliver presents in mid-winter, too. And, in Britain, there was the ancient character of Father Christmas, familiar from the mummers’ plays. The Church pragmatically decided to continue the tradition but under the guardianship of a Christian saint. St Nicholas fitted the bill. In fact, there was nothing very saintly about the earlier Father Christmas who was a drinker, fighter and lover!
“But the Victorians reinvented him, spliced him together with St Nicholas, changed his robe from pagan green to cheery red and brought in the reindeer and sleigh.”
“After the trees had been bought, they then acted as a commodity to display other commodities. Particularly in the earlier parts of the nineteenth century, when presents were hung from their branches and decorations were edible, these items were removed from display on the tree’s branches, just as items were removed from a shop cabinet and handed to the customers. Trees in the USA were often placed by a window overlooking the street, unconsciously echoing shop-window displays. Thus, when tree ornaments became available to purchase, it was a natural progression.
“From the beginning, Germany was the leader in the manufacture of these ornaments. By the early eighteenth century the tin-mines of the Erzgebirge mountains, in Saxony, in south-eastern Germany, were almost exhausted. To eke out a living, the miners created handmade gifts for Christmas markets….
“These carved-wood nutcrackers, toys and decorations made in regional style soon became representative of German Christmas style more generally, along with the regional hand-blown glass ornaments…..”
“The cabinet was miraculously lit and it was filled with a loud hubbub. All the Harlequins, the Pierrots, the Punchinellos, and the jumping jacks were on the move, scurrying hither and yon….
“Finally, Nutcracker himself flung away his covers and with two feet together he leaped off the bed and onto the floor, yelling: ‘Crack! Crack! Crack! Stupid heap of mice! Get back to your holes or I’ll take care of you on the spot!'”
I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
“As mid-December approaches in Western countries, a special atmosphere sets in. The weather and light have a feeling all of their own, and by way of acknowledgment, people start mounting a festival that has been with us, in some form or another, since ancient times….
“They put up colorful lights and sparkling objects to illuminate the gloom, hunt for gifts that might please loved ones, encourage good cheer, extend a spirit of goodwill beyond the usual boundaries, and plan meals on a scale rarely attempted in any other season, as if in willful defiance of winter’s steely austerity. Soon everything orbits around this outlandish and yet compellingly magnificent celebration….
“So where did all this glorious madness come from? Why do we do what we do at Christmas?”
“Begonias are named for Michel Bégon, a French colonial governor, by botanist Charles Plumier (1646–1704), probably to thank him for giving him a post as an official plant collector in the colonies. They have been used medicinally, while one Chinese species, Begonia fimbristipula, is commercially available as a herb tea….
“Botanical classification is complex and the subject of several recent research projects. These are very much enthusiast plants: currently 66 sections are recognised and some 10,000 cultivars have been raised over time.”
“There are some 750 species of Hibiscus, whose name is derived from the Greek for the closely related mallow. Overwhelmingly they are found in the world’s tropical regions, both Old and New Worlds, and include trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals….
“In those temperate regions with warm and humid summers, the range in cultivation is boosted by a number of herbaceous perennial species from the U.S. Southeast, which have enormous flowers….”
Hello!
Here we are at the end of the first week of November, and a bit of fall color is finally starting to paint its way into my neighborhood.
Over the past few days, this Japanese Maple in front of my living room window has turned dark red, its leaves casting a red-orange glow over everything in that room. I’m fascinated by the color, because of its unusual intensity and something else: this maple has lived for years in the shade of a gigantic street-side Bradford Pear tree that has made several previous appearances here, but that Pear is no more. It split in two a few months ago during an intense summer thunderstorm, falling against a telephone pole at the sidewalk in front of my house, then last week the remaining half-tree was cut down by city workers. So now the Japanese Maple is no longer hidden in the shade, and when early morning sun lights up this window, it’s gorgeous! The wild-n-crazy begonia growing there looks pretty cool too!
These two galleries show the last of my late summer/early autumn photos.
The first three pictures are blooms from a begonia called “Senator IQ” — one of three I have in pots on a patio table under an umbrella, where it grows well in the moderate light and sends its tiny flowers over the edge of the table to seek out the sun (as plants like to do). I prefer this kind of begonia because its leaves are very dark green — and that with the shade from the patio umbrella makes it easier to highlight the white blooms with minimal background darkening in Lightroom.
Here are some flowers from an “Orange Hibiscus” — which was the name on the handwritten plant tag in the pot I purchased it in. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be its actual name, or someone just went for the obvious moniker. Anyway, I’ve renamed it OrangeOrangeOrange Hibiscus, because that seems to fit at least as well. The plant was mixed in with other annuals and perennials at the garden center, so I’m not sure if it will hold out through the winter and produce new blooms next year — but it’s still going strong and has added several inches to its leaves and stems despite cooler temperatures and darker days.
Here you see some of the blooms at various focal lengths through a macro lens. In several of the photos you’ll also see little swatches of pink or magenta near the center of the flower. At first I thought these were artifacts and started removing them in Lightroom, then realized (after a little research) that these magenta/pink highlights are colors in wavelengths intended to attract pollinators and direct them toward … the pollinating spot! Smart plant!
