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Dec. 19, 2006 Last year, at this time, I was in Belém, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon River. This is a town where the high and low temperatures are around 88º and 75º every day of the year. The all-time low is 67º, but when it gets down to 70º, with a little breeze, some of the locals complain of the cold. Of course, there has never been a single snowflake in the city in recorded history. Not only that, but coniferous trees, including pine, fir, spruce, larch, cedar and hemlock, do not grow naturally in South America. They are strictly a phenomenon of the Northern Hemisphere, though slash pine has been introduced in Brazil for timber production. And it goes without saying that reindeer aren’t found in Brazil. Coniferous trees, like cedar and pine, and snow do exist in Israel however, but I don’t recall that they were mentioned in the New Testament in conjuction with Christmas. I’ve always assumed that the traditional fir trees and snow drifts of Yuletide were an invention of the northern Europeans—Hollanders, Germans or Scandinavians—that spread around Christendom in the past three or four hundred years. Anyway, I discovered a large, fashionable mall in the outskirts of Belém quite by accident. I got on the wrong bus one day, and away we went. However, I liked the mall, which is called A Castanheira (The Chestnut Tree) and I visited the place three or four times in my five months in Belém. This was a beautiful mall, on a par with just about any mall in the US, but I didn’t buy very much there. I just window-shopped. In the lobby of the mall, around the first of December, workmen put up a little grove of artificial pine or fir trees, with artifical snow on the limbs and around on the floor below, and they set up a sleigh-riding Santa Claus drawn by a team of styrofoam reindeer. I doubt that very many children in the youngest age group in Brazil have the faintest conception of any of these things. There also, a little choo-choo train looped around through the artificial forest, with about 6 cars that held 20 children. The children all seemed to be having a good time, despite the incongruity of the whole situation. Whatever the reason, I loved their merry cries. It’s always good to see these helpless, silly, adorable little creatures with their most unpredictable behavior. So I’d stand around in the air-conditioned coolness of the mall for 5 or 10 minutes watching them and listening to their musical voices. Then I’d go back out into the 90º sun and catch a bus home. This year, as two years ago, I’m in Argentina, where it does get cold, but not at this time of the year. Here summer will begin on December 21, but it’s nice and warm already. I see gifts and ornaments in shop windows though, especially downtown, which is an endless labyrinth of stores. Starting the 18th, I’ll be making jaunts around the country, so I don’t know exactly where I’ll be on the 25th. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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