12.10.07
Merry Christmas 2007!
Merry Christmas everyone! This year is just flying by! I’m so behind this year, but I’m forcing myself to make a quick post because I realize that it’s been a while since my previous post. Despite things moving too fast for me, I’m still enjoying the season. Last night my family and I went out to dinner at Ulysses Voyage. So while we were there, I was able to take a picture of the Christmas decorations at the Grove, which now has their Christmas tree fully “assembled,” ha! In a previous post I wrote how I finally found out how they got such a tall perfectly shaped tree each year. This year that mystery was solved for me. Basically, they assemble a tree by building one up with real branches. So here’s what it looks like fully decorated at night. This was taken from the 7th floor parking lot.
I think it was a couple weeks ago when they officially lit the Christmas lights and closed off the Grove for private invitations during that opening. I wasn’t invited, ha! But I could hear the fireworks from my house.
Here’s a picture of my youngest son, Aaron, and me at the base of the tree.
Below is another shot of some of the decorations. The gingerbread house had a long line most of the day of parents with little kids trying to get in to see Santa. My son jokingly told me, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Santa were there telling the little kids on his lap their fortune?” Ha ha! What a thought, especially around here where there are quite a few Palm and Psychic Readers! Yikes! Yep, another strange thing in the big city. . . The topic came up because of a discussion we had about how mixed up the meaning of Christmas has become. One of my friends had gone to Japan and mentioned how during Christmas they had some trinkets or Christmas decorations for sale with “Santa on a cross!” Ack! I can see how they’d be confused!
After we finished dinner, we took a short drive out to Beverly Hills. When my sisters and I were kids living at home with my parents, my father used to love to take us to Beverly Hills to look at their Christmas lights display. We used to do that every year. Each year the decorations were different. Well, years have gone by since we did that, so while we weren’t too far, we decided to check out Beverly Hills along Wilshire. We were a bit disappointed to see that there were hardly any Christmas lights displayed as they had in times past. (Maybe the person who used to be in charge is retired, ha!) However, we did turn down Rodeo Drive, and look what we saw!
Those square glass boxes suspended in the middle of the road are housing Baccarat chandeliers. It’s been a while since I’d been down there during Christmastime! I found an article dated 2004, which explained that Baccarat decorated this street with 20 of their crystal chandeliers each worth close to $50,000, yikes! That’s a about $1 million just along this street. Kinda makes me stop in my tracks in confusion, ha! One side of me loves art and beauty(so that I “oh and ah”), yet the other side of me hates the gaudiness. Oh well, such is life.
Here’s a closer view of one of the Baccarat chandeliers. I would have taken more pictures, but my camera battery died after this shot, ha!
Okay, I’d better stop playing around here, and get my butt moving! Don’t know if I’ll have much computer time between now and Christmas, I in case I don’t get a chance to send a proper greeting, Merry Christmas everyone! Oh! And I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was nice, too! Ours was very nice aside from the “bugs” I caught that slowed me down for Christmas preparations! Ha! But I’m good now! So must dash and make up for lost time!
Toodles!
Marlakins 
