Tonight is Twelfth Night, not the Shakespeare play but the twelfth night after Christmas and it's an important landmark. That is because tonight must see the removal of the last of the Christmas decorations upon pain of some severe bad luck in the coming year. After 2020 no one needs any more bad luck this coming year.
In the spirit of Twelfth Night I found a bunch of little red odds and ends around Old Town, and I photographed them as a nod to this auspicious date. In some cultures Twelfth Night is the gift giving night as it marks the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem bearing symbolic gifts for the newborn King. When I was a child in Italy we celebrated the visit of the Befana, an ugly old woman on a broomstick with a sack of gifts. One more inexplicable Christmas tradition.
The stuff on the fence is decidedly Christmas stuff and therefore in peril of triggering gross bad fortune.
I like these old street signs, cement blocks at the street corners and there aren't many left but this one has a red stripe to forbid parking next to it. Red? Good enough for me to include in an essay on red things.
I could drive myself mad photographing every red winter flower blooming in Key West so I do try to show some restraint.
The morning after the night before, as usual, but in this case red:
A nice use for a used beer bottle, seasonal too and I think this counts as a way to bring misfortune crashing down on your head. Has to be gone by tonight!
Fantasy Fest beads mixed up with Christmas sounds about right on a holiday celebrated any way one wants apparently:
And to end we have a few official city decorations:
4 comments:
I was told, In old days Christmas Trees were lighted with candles. The tree went up on Christmas eve after the children were put to bed. It was lighted in the morning and that was the first time the children saw the tree. The tree over time could dry and the candles could catch the tree on fire and burn the house down (bad luck). So tree had to be taken down by New Years Eve, or you had bad luck.
Yup, that was the tradition.
That sounds right. We had candles on the tree when I was a child. Bloody hell I must be old.
We're not old. We're seasoned.
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