I can't compete with Christmas!

Welcome, celebrationally-challenged reader, because I've no idea if Christmas has been cancelled where you are or not. I guess in a week's time we're all going to party like it's 1655, which is more or less what the rest of this year has felt like anyway. But for what it's worth, some things are proceeding as normal here, and maybe even going bigger. One of those things is domestic decoration.

The bubble-within-a-bubble-within-a-bubble which is Palo Alto has decided to run a holiday decorating contest this year. Now obviously, this is something which the locals take seriously, and its organized enough that there are even lawn signs with QR-code-based voting options on there.

Note here the imaginative and plentiful deployment of the candy cane. This curiously American invention just isn't much of a thing in Europe, but they're everywhere here; the real thing is a bit like seaside rock, although it doesn't have the air bubbles you tend to get in a really nice seaside rock. I don't know where they come from or how they're significant, but they're a universal indication of the holiday season which is tremendously widespread.

Now obviously our simple, puritanical European ways can't compete with this, but even I was somewhat bitten by the Christmas decoration bug. As I mentioned last week, some amount of external lighting and a massive tree is the minimal viable product for a domestic Christmas here, and that naive desire to just enjoy the holidays is something that infected me quicker than COVID at a Trump holiday party. I was tasked with decorating the tree, which you can see here in the early stages of implementation:

Yes, that's a map of the US on the wall.

Following this, we moved to the exterior lights. At this point, my levels of enthusiasm overtook me, and astounded my co-habitant. Not only did I distribute the external lights, but I even expressed some dissatisfaction with our first attempt at stringing them through the garden, taking half of what we'd done down and reworking the design to match stringent aesthetic standards. And as a result, we ended up with this:

I'm rather proud of the "Barber's pole" effect on the column here, which is reflected in the column on the other side of the porch too, and the imaginative use of the nails which can be used to hang things from the top of the porch.

Tonight we'll be touring the 30-ish sites that have entered themselves into the Palo Alto holiday decoration competition, and we'll be sure to bring you news of our personal favourite here. Happy holidays however you're managing to celebrate them this year!