My Christmas Wreath This Year

 

I know it’s completely out of the symbolism of Christmas wreath. But this year I made a wreath with dried foxtail with leaves of crimson glory vine. i.e. No evergreens. There’s not much particular reason of it … I just wanted to make a Christmas wreath with materials from the next-door environment of Yokohama’ suburbia. I happened to obtain a vine of chocolate vine while mowing in Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森. Chocolate vine is a material famous for beautiful baskets (for example, shop here), or, if it’s short, nice for making a wreath. In any case, mine is very short so I decided to use it as a base for wreath. Foxtail is ubiquitous in our neighborhood, or sometimes simply regarded as weed. In December they look like dried flowers. Why not use it for holiday joy?

A lot.

Crimson glory vine, this year showed a strange result. When it was a good year for them, they start providing ripen grapes from the middle of August. This year, no. Last August was uber hot in Yokohama. In addition, in the end no big typhoon came to our town. The ground has been dry. It’s good for leaves of glory vine to turn beautiful red in late autumn. They don’t have to suffer damages by strong wind, do they? But not so good for their fruits. In December they still have tiny green bunches of grapes … They are desiccated before reaching maturity. Sad (; my post on September 21, 2018). Anyway, “what you have left that’s count,” isn’t it?

Certainly, they are beautiful …

But it’s a sad scenery in the middle of December …

That’s said, … I guess something is happening for our climate.

Merry Christmas.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Merry Christmas

Er, for this post I did a little bit of research in Yokohama if there is a large enough Christmas tree that I could show off … I cannot find any. Yeah, there are lots home-sized trees in shopping malls, but nothing spectacular as we can encounter in some other Euro-American world. The cultural difference, in the end.

A tree

This one was the largest I found,
and it was only a half tree.

Christmas wreaths made of something
from forest are popular, though
… They are functionally similar to
Japanese traditional decorations
for New Year (like these).

2016 Christmas “tree” in Nissan Global HDQ
… it’s not organic for sure.

The other day, I found a tree at the entrance of Ikebuchi Open Space of Niiharu which has an ideal size to be a Christmas tree. I just muttered “This tree is perfect for a Christmas tree ...” Then, come to think of it, my seniors of Lovers of Niiharu almost in unison laughed and replied, “Don’t be silly.” Oh yeah. The cultural difference, honestly.

… well, actually,
this one is stressed with yellowing leaves.
Yeah, using it for decoration is a silly thing.
We need to nurse it.

Anyway, I wish you a merry Christmas!

p.s. Granted it’s not only for Christmas, but,
for Japanese festive cakes should be like these:
sponges sandwiching thick whipped cream
and fresh strawberries (in perfect shape, of course).
Certainly, these days we can easily find in Yokohama
buche de noel, stollen, panettone, Christmas puddings, etc.
But for a proper Japanese Christmas feast,
these strawberries are the MUST.
There are several theories about our love for this cake.
I support one of the explanations:
the ubiquitous Fujiya Café, established in Yokohama in 1910,
pushed their addictively sweet version of such cake
for unsuspecting Japanese Christmas nationwide.
Anyway, this photo was taken
in Foundry for Sogo Yokohama. :)