The Twelve Days - 1
Given the weird short-notice Christmas thing that living in the USA foists upon one, I thought I’d try something different this year and do a seasonal-themed posting on each of the twelve days up to and including The Day. I don’t know why I’m doing this, and I suspect it might end up collapsing into pointless chit-chat about present buying, but let’s see.
Last night, the part of San Francisco we live in had a Christmas event. The area’s called Noe Valley, and one of its major thoroughfares is 24th Street. So the event was either ‘The 24th Street Noel Stroll’, or ‘Noel Valley’ depending on which poster you read. As events go, it was pretty low key: Santa was appearing in an estate agent’s, there were to be carollers, and a peripatetic reading of Dylan Thomas (in the sense that it was going to be happening in three locations over the course of the evening, not that it was going to be a walking reading). And the shops were going to be open late.
Ah-ha! I think I begin to see the motivation. Yes, it’s basically an opportunity to get people going store-to-store and buying more stuff. And there’s some nice stuff to be had - it’s a neighbourhood of one-off shops and fresh produce, and very pleasant to stroll even without an excuse.
But it didn’t feel much like an occasion. It just felt like a lot of people out on a Saturday evening taking advantage of slightly late-night-opening to do what they’d be doing anyway. With carols.
And so I start these seasonal postings with the observation that Christmas in San Francisco is probably going to be a pretty quiet affair.