La Luz de Natal

After being entertained by Erins account of Corks "brilliant" Christmas lights Ive been meaning to bring you a selection of what the Alentejo does for Christmas. However its been a long time coming - as have the lights.

When I got to Portugal they were busy constructing the biggest Christmas tree in the world in Lisbon (its artificial so during the day it looks like scaffolding). When I went back to Lisbon at the start of the month they'd put some lights up in the Praca Londres, and Escoural had put up the "Boas Festas" at each end of town (some sort of warning sign that Christmas starts here?). The rest took about two weeks to put up (using a bloke standing in the bucket of a backhoe - probably my fault it took so long as I kept needing the backhoe to dig holes). The theme here is "Put lights around the windows and gutters and then hang a couple of stars to prove its Xmas".
My personal favourite is "Hanging Santa" - somehow the image of Santa abseiling down your wall is supposed to inspire fesitivity. Unfortunately it looks like Santa's been done for speeding by the GNR while trying to get round all the houses in Escoural and has been hung at high noon.
Not to be outdone at work we have our own (crappy) Christmas tree. Nicked from "somewhere" by the fieldies during a slow day on the rig (making the geo paranoid in the process when they cheerfully told him that they could all be locked up for this), decorated by flagging tape and with an angel cut out of a magazine. Ahhhh it could almost be the Goldfields.
I came home on Friday night to find Montemor finally finishing off the town lights (probably a good idea a week before Christmas). And the ones in the square down the road are actually quite nice - surprising really. So Boas Festas from Portugal!