Last night this year’s Christmas lights were switched on in Sorrento. Here is some footage from Pupia Campania showing some of the M’illumino d’Inverno event in Tasso Square:
A list of winter events in Sorrento is provided at napolidavivere.it
This is a video about the Christmas lights that people have put up in Walton in the Covid year – 2020. There seem to be more decorations up this year than in previous years. Perhaps this is because Christmas decorations provide people who have been starved of proper social interaction with a surrogate social outlet of a more artistic kind. By putting up exterior Christmas decorations people are providing their neighbours with something with a visual amenity which can perhaps bring them closer together during this time of separation.
This is a much shorter version of the video and is a kind of trailer for the full video that follows.
The following is the full video with footage arranged by geographical area within the village: School Lane (0:20), The Balk (1:10), Thornhill (1:28), Beechcroft (2:06), Manor (2:16), Greenside (3:06), Woodfield Park (3:24), Shay Lane (3:41), Brooklands (4:35), Elmwood (4:53), Cherry Tree (5:41), The Grove (6:32), and The Mount (7:00). The intention was to create a kind of historical record of Christmas in Walton in the year 2020. It was also intended to show great effort that people in Walton have made this year to make the village look its best for Christmas despite the difficulties experienced.
Apologies to anyone whose decorations I did not include. At first I intended to make it quite comprehensive but that proved difficult. Some footage was too blurred to use, and decorations kept going up after I had filmed an area, which of course is a good thing. There were also a few areas that I didn’t manage to reach. Added to this, I did not want to make the film too long.
Since having my own house I have always had a Christmas tradition of decorating my tree in the broadest possible range of bright colours. Basically, my colour scheme is every colour possible. This can be seen in the poll owing close up of my tree in a previous year.
Last year I started a new tradition of decorating my mantelpiece in the same multicolored scheme. I tend to put my best ornaments there. The following is this year’s mantelpiece display:
I have built up my collection of ornaments from small selection donated to me by my parents. My colour scheme represents my memory of vivid colour from my early childhood – it was the seventies after all! When I am enjoying a holiday abroad I always like to buy some Christmas ornaments to add to my display. The following is a wider view of my tree from a previous year:
I have tried to categorise some of the ornaments below to tell a bit of a story about how this collection was built up over time.
The first two were from the Christmas tree of my childhood which was the inspiration from my rather broad colour scheme:
The next four were obtained during my first Christmas in my own house. The giraffe was my favourite for many years, but unfortunately was damaged a couple of years ago. There is usually one a year that gets broken during the decorating or put away process.
This one has the colour and texture of an orange. It always reminds me of tales from older relatives who said that they only got an orange as a Christmas present ‘in their day’. I guess this ornament could be viewed as being symbolic of gratitude. [Correction – it wasn’t just an orange that they got, rather it was ‘an apple, an orange and tuppence’!]
The next one evokes childhood memories of a combination of Disney, and the Arabian Nights. Perhaps symbolic of the birth of Christianity in the Middle East.
The following three were bought at Macy’s, New York and creates an American presence in my Christmas.
The next three were from Harrods in London
The next four ornaments came from a shop in Leeds called The Pier. This always had an excellent selection of very tasteful an unique Christmas decorations, like the Chinese lantern design below.
The next three are rather recent purchases from John Lewis.
The next five are rather special and are made from Murano glass. Murano is an island in the Venetian lagoon in Italy that is world famous for its glass making.
The next four ornaments are from southern Italy which makes a lot of ceramic goods. There are made in the spirit of that pottery tradition.
This one is a lemon, a unbiquitous fruit in southern Italy.
This one was bought in the beautiful town of Positano on the spectacular Amalfi coast of Italy.
The next seven decorations were bought in the Christmas Shop in Sorrento.
Next is Humpty Dumpty which was a gift rarther an ornament I got for myself. Like many gifts I love it as it is so unique and has great texture.
Here are some more ornaments in my collection:
Just after the strike of midnight last night, I made a short film about my Christmas lights – both inside and outside. If you listen carefully you can hear some of the new year fireworks going off in the background.
Merry Christmas. Got a new camera for Christmas – photography is one of my hobbies. This is a picture of my Christmas tree today, Christmas Day 2015. Another hobby of mine is collecting Christmas baubles as you may have guessed by looking at the tree. When I am on holiday I try to get a unique Christmas decoration from the place I am staying.
People who visited my blog earlier this year on 8 October will have seen that my pet dog, Tilly, underwent a major operation. You can find the 8 October post HERE.
Earlier this week she celebrated her first Christmas since her operation.
The following video shows her opening her Christmas presents on a Christmas morning we thought she might not have seen.
cjknowles1972 