It's the first time that I am experiencing Christmas in a Latin American country, and to be honest, I am quite overwhelmed with all the splendor. It's simply dazzling! Back at home Christmas is a much more subdued affair. People usually decorate a living fir tree with hand-carved and artsy mouth blown glass balls, along with plenty of chocolate, lametta and real wax candles. Here, in South America, it's all about plastic and multicolored flashlights, glowing butterflies, birds and flowers. The nativity scene is especially impressive with hoards of little plastic animals, houses, toy cars, palm trees and whatever else looks good. All the streets are lined with millions of flashing, glowing and cascading lights in every conceivable color. It's simply superb. I love it! What kind of Christmas decorations do you have in your country?
I come from a town that did Christmas right. Every street was adorned with lights and bows and the shops were decorated from top to bottom with the most amazing displays. It always snowed too, so there was magic about the whole thing. The city I'm in now, you wouldn't know it's Christmas and there is no snow yet, so it's actually pretty disappointing. Where you are sounds amazing! I would love to see it
You can drive through many neighborhoods in the US and have those same experiences. There is a neighborhood of modest homes. A friend of mine, decorates her porch to the nth degree. It is only her porch, and the sidewalk that leads to the driveway. The poles are decorated in red and green colored fuzzy garland. The blinking Christmas lights are of different colors. I think it is all so pretty.
There are plenty of places that do it big with the decorations here in America. Where I live is not one of those places at all and quite frankly never will be. There are just places where the neighborhoods are just too bad to have anything outside of the house. I still remember last year of hearing at least four times someone stole a baby Jesus.
From last few years or so have seen many changes to Christmas celebrations, as technology has become a larger part in the seasonal festivities- First starters, people used lit candles to decorate Christmas trees rather than the LED lights we have nowadays. But best part of Christmas is "the presents", presents were very different what we get nowadays and everyone likes Christmas gifts.
When I was a kid, there was a house owner who actually allowed people to walk through the two acres of yard. There were various animated scenes with lights everywhere. It was amazing. People came from miles around. One year he became very sick and could not put up the decorations. The kids teens in the area all got together and put up the decorations. We put out a donation tin because his medical bills were so high, he was unable to afford the electric bill. It was amazing to see how this man loved the response he got. It was one of the best moments of my life.
