Korean lanterns without lights at the Tucson Botanical Garden

In some areas of the country holiday light shows have become a competitive sport with neighborhood challenging neighborhood, street outdoing street. And the local power companies counting up the profits.

In Tucson, however, holiday lights are a reminder of tradition. Starting in 1949 the man who built the upscale Winterhaven neighborhood encouraged all homeowners to decorate their houses for Christmas. Then, for decades, fellow Tucsonans drove through to admire the lights. These days the light show continues but people who want to see the decorations have to walk through Winterhaven in order to cut down pollution for residents.

Two other Tucson locations also put on good holiday light shows: Tohono Chul Park, and the Tucson Botanical Garden. As a new member of the Tucson Botanical Garden I decided to spend an hour or two walking around the garden in the afternoon, instead of waiting for darkness to fall to see their light show which consists of luminaria and large scale lanterns.

And am I glad I did!

The lanterns were works of art, even without lighting from within. One group of lanterns were inspired by the Korean Jinju Yudeung Festival. Jinju is a town in the southern Korean peninsula where formidable battles took place, primarily against the Japanese, between 1079 and 1600. According to Wikipedia, lanterns were used as warning to the populace. But the lanterns at the Botanical Garden did not look at all like military signalling devices. Here are a few of them:

Following the winding path I next came upon some lanterns that had local Arizona inspiration. Even though they lacked the bright colors of the Korean ones, they, too are works of art. No lighting required.

While the desert tortoise and javalinas are clearly lanterns, the giraffe had almost the appearance of being a giant puppet. As with the Korean ones, I am showing only a few of them. There were more. Maybe next year I will go after dark, but daytime viewing was surprising and rewarding.