ANOTHER HOLIDAY TIME IN THE DESERT

Not quite a year ago, when the LRNArts blog was in its infancy, we took a tour of the holiday preparations going on around San Angelo...

We still don't have any dreidel spinning contests in this part of West Texas, a sad fact noted in last year's ode to winter celebrations...

This year we revisit the Santa Fe Railroad depot and its wreath-bedecked engine sitting idly under an icy-blue desert sky... 

Our next stop is the Tom Green County Courthouse early one Sunday morning to view the Nativity Scene gracing its lawn.  Pesky ideas about separation of church and state don't hold much water in these parts, pardner...

 

Local merchants celebrate the season with outdoor displays, too, or fill their windows with holiday cheer.  They are private businesses and even the old Ebenezer Scrooge would have no real right to complain about their right to spend their funds as they see fit.  Near the entrance to Eggemeyer's General Store, a lamb peeks through slats in a makeshift manger at three wise dudes shlepping from the east...

 

Snow doesn't fall often in this part of the desert.  But it did on one long ago Christmas when poor Santa's reindeer had the flu and he had to don a ten gallon cowboy hat and ride his trusty steed, Tarbush Tom, over the cactus-studded plains to make sure all the good little boys of the Concho Valley awoke to stockings filled with licorice and shiny Indian Head pennies...

And there are elegant mannequins in store windows...

Not to be outdone, Pearl the Mermaid proves she can look just as fancy in a Christmas cap as any snooty uptown lady...

Locals know the start of the holiday season has nothing to do with Black Friday or even national chains putting up trees and playing Jingle Bells over store intercoms right after the Fourth of July fireworks show.  It really begins when two and half miles of Concho River banks downtown are lit up by over three million lights.  Visitors from across Texas and 27 states saw the lights last year.  A pedestrian crossing the bridge near the Visitor Center could see scenes from the Twelve Days of Christmas greeting the morning sun at dawn on another lovely West Texas desert day...     

 

 

THE MARKETPLACE:

One very easy and inexpensive way to build a collection of work by some of today's finest painters, sculptors, and photographers:  Greeting cards from Fine Art America. 

Even easier: browse the Louis Nugent gallery at Fine Art America.  Choose from 250+ unique ideas for home and office decor or holiday and birthday cards for yourself or a special someone who deserves something extraordinary.  Individual cards cost less than $5.  Wall prints from $22.

Louis Nugent: Electric Triangles

 

http://louis-nugent.artistwebsites.com/

Follow and Like Louis R Nugent Photography on Facebook @ louisnugent22.

Fine Art America now features painting, drawings, and photographs by 17 artists who celebrate majestic and uncompromising landscapes, settlements, people, plants, and animals of West Texas.

http://fineartamerica.com/groups/west-texas.html

Fine Arts America now features  work celebrating the mysterious and lovely Bayou State of Louisiana and its unique lifestyle:

http://fineartamerica.com/groups/cajun-country-louisiana.html

 

CREDITS

Note: All photographs for this essay were located through Google Images or Wikipedia, without authoritative source or ownership information except as noted: all photographs by Louis R Nugent.