Christmas Holidays Experiences

Hey, everyone!

Over the Christmas Holidays, I did not really do much of anything except spend time with my family. But on Christmas eve I went to a church service that to an extent was done by a Baptist church in mid-downtown Houston Texas. The church itself was nice as can be. Very much like an old church from the middle ages but a bit more modern. Going on to the service it was very nice but from my experience, it seemed as though they were acting more like a catholic church than baptist. Which to me, I felt like they were putting on the entire service as a show since they did have a good choir and orchestra. But there were times when the percussion section did drown out the rest of the group. While the choir could be heard without an issue.
 Later that week on the 26th of December 2015 I went to a festival called "Magical Winter Lights" at the Gulf Grey Hound Park in La Marque, Texas. With the cost of admission and parking, it was $25 in total.  For a one time visit event it's not too bad of a price jut to see the lantern sculptures but if you wanted to take part in the carnival aspect then that would be a different story with another $20 fee just for the unlimited ride armband.
During the event, there was these Chinese acrobatic show produced by the "Sichuan Zigong Acrobatic Troupe" that was oddly enough quite amazing and well put together. In the process of my visit to the event, I happened to actually record the entire 31-minute show and a bit of what I saw of the lantern sculptures. Now I do apologize for the shakiness as I was using my selfie stick to balance my action camera. I also realize that the video quality may be utter crap but I was working with the best I had on hand at the time. When watching the Acrobatic show part there was a brief moment where the stage lighting was very bright and distorted the video, hopefully, it's not too bad. In the process of editing this video, Youtube had a fit with copyright.

Now at this point, All I have to say is enjoy the show and Have an epic day.

 The song to the right of this section of was in the  Acrobatic show as it comes from a band in Japan  called "SMAP." Just a little tidbit I'd share with you for fans of Japanese culture.












Magical Winter Lights Promo Video created by the event creators
The Event's official Site 

South Plains Nativity Exhibit

(figure 1) Map of the event space.

Well hey, today for any typical Sunday of any month, my day like many others is usually uneventful. But today, on the other hand, it was it quite an experience as I visited an exhibit that was being held at Mormon church. Now before I go any further I will mention that I come from that of a Baptist church background  under the Christian faith so our ways of thinking are quite different but to avoid an argument I will avoid mentioning their ways of thinking. Before the event, my mother and I had a very good lunch at a restaurant called, "Souper Salad."
          Then from there we did a bit of shopping at CVS pharmacy on the way to picking up my sister who was doing a service dog training session with a client. After that, we made our way to the "South Plains Nativity Exhibit." Once we stepped inside we were happily greeted by a volunteer working at the event who gave us a map of the event facility. (See figure 1) The exhibit displayed various nativity sets collected by the local community.
       In each area, the nativities were arranged as to where they came from in terms of Artist's, Traditional, International and lastly a children's area. Each of which with its own unique collections, international being my unique favorite due to how creative a number of the pieces were. After going the main two exhibit halls I went to the Artists hall where a person whom I do not know the name of was working on a head bust of a person she was sculpting. I watched her for a moment then moved on eventually leaving the event to head on home. In my opinion, overall I felt like the exhibit was very well orchestrated and very much fulfilled it's greater purpose of representing the birth of Jesus Christ as he is the "Reason for the Season!"  Kudos to them for creating a very superb exhibit.

When watching the video really consider how much work it took to make each piece as a number of them are handmade.)



For more information about it:
Video description of the event.
Official site of the exhibit