Suddenly San Franciscan

Sometimes the very strangest things catch me out in this country.  Like Anna’s early discovery that we live in a Squashless Society, today I found myself confused by how hard it seems to be to buy Christmas Tree lights.

We’ve left getting organised for what Lyle would call the Festering Season a bit late this year.  It’s sort of crept up on us, to be honest.  I’ll digress for a moment:  Back in Blighty, Christmas starts in late August when the shops start stocking decorations and excess toys, and supermarkets suddenly develop piles of Christmas puddings.  In the US, as I’ve noted to a few people recently, there’s this late Autumn cycle of holidays that starts with Hallowe’en, segues into Thanksgiving, then (and only then) the decks are cleared for Christmas.  Nothing happens regarding one until the previous one is safely out of the way.  As an example, the charity Christmas shop around the corner from work opened its doors on the 1st of December.  Can you see that happening in Britain?

But the side effect of this is that while Americans are clearly used to cramming everything into December, we’re not.  In the UK I’d have at least been thinking about getting things organised for a while, spurred on by every shop window, TV ad and high street light.  Here I’ve had no real warning.

So suddenly cards have to be bought, presents organised, and the tree question - real/fake? if real, living or cut? if cut, can we deal with the guilt, etc - has to be addressed.  Plus, we’re at the mercy of public transport with regard to getting any tree home from the point of purchase.  But that’s what the internet is for.  So one hopefully beautiful, wholly sustainable tree having been ordered, we went out today to get cards and sort out decorations.

And to be clear - American Christmas decorations are awesome.  There’s so much more variety than I’ve ever seen in the UK and the quality is so much better.  You can develop really quite elaborate themes on trees and as long as you really commit to it, it all somehow works.  I’ve seen underwater themes, wine country themes, a San Francisco theme (lots of dangling cable cars)…

We settled on a fairly traditional approach, red and white/silver with white lights.  And then we stopped dead.  Thinking back around the various Christmas decoration outlets we’d seen, we couldn’t remember a single string of Christmas tree lights anywhere.  We were standing in the middle of Macy’s ‘Holiday Lane’ when the realisation hit us, and examining the lights on their display trees we realised they were all pretty much fixed to the branches.  When I’d been looking at trees I’d seen a lot listed as ‘prelit’, and now I began to understand.  But surely you can still light a tree yourself?  Surely just like you can in the UK you can get a string of fairy lights and drape them inelegantly and unartfully over a drooping fir?

Well, it seems not by wandering the streets and shops of San Francisco you can’t.  String of Santa lights? No problem.  String of snowmen?  Yep - that we can do.  String of lights that look like ice lollies? Amazingly unseasonal, but yes, if you want.  But just a simple string of little bulbs on a twisted green cable?  Clearly about as crazy a request as a casserole dish with a lid.

So back to the internet I went, and riding to the rescue came, and I kid you not, ChristmasLightsEtc.com.

Considering I’m not even that bothered by Christmas…

December 6th, 2008 | Tags: culture shock | Category: Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL