Las Noches de las Luminarias

Holidays at the Desert Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by EdnPHX.

Last Night, I ventured to a Phoenix holiday tradition. The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix puts on the annual Las Noches de las Luminarias. Travis convinced me to go, as I was not in the holiday mood lately. I was quite impressed. The place was filled with thousand upon thousands of luminaries. (For you who don’t know, luminaries are those candle in paper bag thingy that line a sidewalk or walkway…a cheap, effective and festive way to light up an area to walk through.)

The night was filled with Holiday cheer and music by many different bands and artists. My favorite was the harp player, and the bell ringers. Very festive. We ate at the event where I had my first holiday tamales. Green Chile and Corn Tamales with a creamy spicy chile sauce. (Krist, you’d be impressed…they were damn good.) It was a great relaxing night. A glass of cabernet topped off the evening. Or more appropriately a plastic cup.

After the event, we decided to run out and continue our holiday cheer with some cocktails at the local bar Homme. It was dead, but the Bacardi Limon and diets were flowing very nicely. The bar was playing the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Have you ever seen that movie? Is that not the weirdest movie you have ever seen!!?? We couldn’t stop watching the movie. It’s like watching a train wreck or something. What made it even weirder was that the whole bar (all 5 people) were entranced with the movie. It was like a form of mind control or something. Or everybody was high.

Today I get to see Brokeback Mountain. Got my tickets for the 7:40pm show. I’m totally excited. The Arizona Republic gave the movie an excellent review. (Which is pretty good considering the AZ Republic tends to be on the conservative side.) So now I need to prepare for the movie. All the usual questions pop in my head….do I bring Kleenex? (Answer: Yes….but the travel size so your discreet enough, but yet not obvious) What do I wear? (Answer: NOT western wear…which I don’t have any anyways. That’d be really queer.) How early do I get there? (Answer: Early enough to get a good seat, obviously……oh jeez….I’m talking to myself again….) I’m sure the who’s who will be at the theatre. I could only find one theatre in Central Phoenix playing the show, which is right next to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. Should be a great movie to see.

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