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After last evening, it feels like the holiday season to me.
Every year, the Desert Botanical Garden, here in Phoenix, puts on a holiday event with food and entertainment. Luminarias are a tradtional holiday lighting techinique here in the southwest. A luminaria is just a lighted candle set in sand in a brown paper lunch bag. It sounds unimpressive, but when many of them are set out at once, lining driveways or walkways it's festive, picturesque and even a little romantic.
At the park it's a traditional event that sells out months in advance. The Botanical Garden volunteers line every pathway and many of the building roofs in the park with luminarias There is a very informal dinner available at anytime during the evening.. There is hot cider and cookies available along the trails. Scattered throughout the park there are professional musicians playing all evening. There are more standard electric lighting displays in some parts of the park.
This year it was a little colder than usual. Last year it sprinkled a litte.. But still, it's always been fun.
It's a tradition that one of the acts in one of the park buildings is a group of bell ringers. Since, the Luminarias have grown so popular that they are held every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas a number of bell ringing groups get to come and perform. The group we saw from nearby Scottsdale was very impressive. There was a little less variety in the instruments in the rest of the park than usual this year. Almost everything was a guitar plus one or two other instruments. The one exception was the Native American flute artist who has performed every year I've been there. Maybe I should clarify that. It's both a Native American performing and native style music. His instruments are all hand made, but they are made from bamboo, which isn't exactly Native American. (grin) While in instrumental makeup of the rest of the acts were similar to each other, there was nothing similar about the styles they played. We heard jazz, Brazilian, Cuban, classical, even a cowboy singer who accompanied himself for a few of his songs (attention![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
knullabulla!) on a baritone ukulele. Every year there is always one act that really gets me in the holiday spirit. Last year it was a fellow who played magnificently on the lute. This year it was a flautist with her husband accompanying on guitar.
It's hard to describe here. But, these are really special evenings.
Every year, the Desert Botanical Garden, here in Phoenix, puts on a holiday event with food and entertainment. Luminarias are a tradtional holiday lighting techinique here in the southwest. A luminaria is just a lighted candle set in sand in a brown paper lunch bag. It sounds unimpressive, but when many of them are set out at once, lining driveways or walkways it's festive, picturesque and even a little romantic.
At the park it's a traditional event that sells out months in advance. The Botanical Garden volunteers line every pathway and many of the building roofs in the park with luminarias There is a very informal dinner available at anytime during the evening.. There is hot cider and cookies available along the trails. Scattered throughout the park there are professional musicians playing all evening. There are more standard electric lighting displays in some parts of the park.
This year it was a little colder than usual. Last year it sprinkled a litte.. But still, it's always been fun.
It's a tradition that one of the acts in one of the park buildings is a group of bell ringers. Since, the Luminarias have grown so popular that they are held every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas a number of bell ringing groups get to come and perform. The group we saw from nearby Scottsdale was very impressive. There was a little less variety in the instruments in the rest of the park than usual this year. Almost everything was a guitar plus one or two other instruments. The one exception was the Native American flute artist who has performed every year I've been there. Maybe I should clarify that. It's both a Native American performing and native style music. His instruments are all hand made, but they are made from bamboo, which isn't exactly Native American. (grin) While in instrumental makeup of the rest of the acts were similar to each other, there was nothing similar about the styles they played. We heard jazz, Brazilian, Cuban, classical, even a cowboy singer who accompanied himself for a few of his songs (attention
knullabulla!) on a baritone ukulele. Every year there is always one act that really gets me in the holiday spirit. Last year it was a fellow who played magnificently on the lute. This year it was a flautist with her husband accompanying on guitar. It's hard to describe here. But, these are really special evenings.
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In one of the older neighbourhoods here, the residents set up the same homemade luminarias all around the houses, sidewalks. It goes on for several blocks. We stumbled upon it our first year here and go back every year. They do all of the holidays "big" here. Our house is on one of the Christmas neighbourhood tours. Last year we stopped counting at 30 buses in a row. We don't decorate much outside, a wreath and a few of those plastic candycanes is all. Inside, I am afraid, is another story.
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