Lights out
(Christmas lights in George Square: Glasgow, UK)
Yesterday being the 6th of January, all the Christmas lights, trees and all other ephemera are to be taken down. Traditionally, being the twelfth day since Christmas day, it is the final day of celebration and then we shift back into ordinary time. George Square is arguably the centre of Glasgow in a geographical, commercial and administrative sense; the city chambers, top hotels, railway stations and smart apartments all surround it and it is a stage for various city celebrations. Around Christmastime it is filled with people ice skating, on chair swings, helter skelters and drinking mulled wine, and to set the scene, this is where the Christmas lights are most impressive.
There are the usual holly sprigs and bells, but the uplit blue angels are relatively new, as well as being a more tasteful and less garish than the traditional light shapes. Christmas obviously is a very commercial time here and in the weeks before Christmas, the weather was affecting shopping sales and flights across the board. Oddly enough, there didn’t seem to be too much news on how people would actually celebrate Christmas with all the weather issues. Don’t worry, you will not be lectured on the ‘true meaning of Christmas’ or anything, but I imagine some pretty interesting stories evolved from the altered journeys people took to get home, or how people coped without water or power; it would have been great to gain a more personal insight into Christmas, as well as to see it manifest in illuminated shapes.
There is something celebratory about lights at night and I will miss them as January merges into an inevitably dark February. This morning I woke up and even though it was late, I couldn’t even tell if it was daytime or not from the amount of light in the room. Now that the festive snow has all but disappeared, typical Glasgow dreariness has set in for the foreseeable future. I do hear it might snow tomorrow though…
– Today Rosie is heading to Oban with, and to visit friends, UK –
