Skip to main content

Christmas Countdown Local 2022 #21 & #22 Inclusivity

 


Christmas Countdown #21  ... A few weeks ago, when I first started talking about Christmas, I raised the issue of a multicultural Christmas...  It is a joy to behold - a Christmas tree decorated  with colourful cultural items and flags from different countries. This tree was sponsored by the Refugee Hub, (Newcastle NSW)  There is such a balance here between traditional Christmas  ornaments as well as patterns and colours representing different ethnic groups.  To me, being inclusive means respecting  and celebrating different values and beliefs - just what the Christmas season is about. 

Bei




#22 Dragmas Christmas Photography 
In a local shopping centre, instead of photos only with Santa, the management are implementing their inclusivity policy  by offering Christmas photos with Timberlina , Drag Queen extraordinaire and friends. I imagine some are offended by this, but I saw it as a bit of fun and spreading some Christmas cheer.  It is  acknowledgement that we are not all the same, but we can live and love in harmony.   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas Countdown #25envelopes/9 : Holly

  9 December Christmas Countdown #25envelopes : Holly . The Druids of ancient Britain believed holly leaves had great powers of fertility and longevity . Nowadays, Holly has become a symbol of a Christian Christmas. It is also said that the sharp holly represents the crown of thorns that Jesus wore, and the red berries the blood he shed, so it has quite a religious significance. Today’s envelope is a simple collage with paper and fabric. I couched (stitched) Holly ribbon and embroidered French knots for the berries. The Holly theme is inspired by one of my favourite Australian Christmas stamps, depicting an angel with holly leaf wings . Today, I was stitching the holly ribbon onto the envelope at the Wednesday group and had planned to glue on some paper berries but a friend convinced me that embroidered ones would look much better and I think she is right!

#SeptTextileLove26 Day 4

 #septtextilelove  #stl26day4  … Story-telling … making ‘art dolls’ gives wonderful opportunities to tell stories … This matriarch’s story  is intertwined with the cicadas which form  part of the soft sculpture  and emphasises what appears to be a contradiction about nurturing life and inevitable death... Cicadas spend years underground as nymphs feeding on root sap, emerging en masse as winged adults for a few days, perhaps a week, to mate and lay eggs in tree branches, then die, leaving the eggs to hatch into new nymphs that burrow underground to restart the cycle.  The dormant underground phase of the cicada’s life can be from 2-17 years! In my interpretation, this forest matriarch offers a safe place for cicadas to lay eggs, only to cause their own demise … but the continuing life cycle is ensured. 

Christmas Firsts #18 : Where in the World?

Where in the world will FIRST  experience Christmas Day? Because of the time zones and daylight saving , the first places will be   Samoa,    Tonga  and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) . They   are the first places to welcome Christmas. New Zealand and Australia see in Christmas Day soon after,  while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States of America are among the last. These statistics are more often quoted in relation to New Year's Eve, but I think it seems appropriate that Christmas Island is one of the first to celebrate Christmas in the world.  Kiritimati,    or Christmas Island, is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name "Kiritimati" is a respelling of the English word "Christmas" in the  Kiribati language   The island has the greatest land area of any  coral atoll  in the w...