It's That Time Of Year Again

Just a quick entry to mention that last night (just before going to see Higher Ground--see previous post) Melissa and I attended the City of Reno's official Christmas tree lighting. It was actually a lot of fun in a Norman Rockwell sort of way. Here are some pictures:

This is a shot of the tree from it's base a moment after being lit. I would like to have gotten a picture that gives you a sense of the size of the crowd which showed up to watch the lighting (it probably helped the attendance numbers that lighting ceremony was also the end destination of the wine walk that takes place every third Saturday of the month in my riverfront neighborhood) but unfortunately in the dark my limited picture-taking technology proved to be a little, well, limited.

I'm not exactly sure who these folks were. They were some kind of chorus dressed in Renaissance Faire clothing, except for the guy in back who obviously thought it would be just sooo wacky to wear that candy cane hat. They sang Christmas Carols before the lighting of the tree. Actually the one who stole the show was the woman in the front row on the left, who was very animated and sort of acted out every verse of the song.

Also along was my friend Dominique (aka 'MiMi', the person who first got me into blogging, for which Melissa is forever grateful ;-)) and her boyfriend. Dominique's boyfriend is French, but I can't spell French names and so I won't embarrass myself by trying.

Dominique was nice enough to turn the camera on Melissa and I and snap this picture. It is not her fault as a photographer that I appear so pasty--that's just my genes.

This final shot was taken earlier today; it's my view of the tree from the observation deck of the Fortress of Solitude. This gives you some perspective of just how big the tree actually is--not bad for a white-trash mountain town.