Pre-Christmas in Brownsville, with Mangos and Beer

We spent the Saturday before Christmas in downtown Brownsville for a full immersion in all things that are weird here. It was fabulous.

The Christmas Village in the park by the zoo was deserted in the broad daylight, just the way we like it. The food trucks were closed up, and the lights were all off, but we could linger as long as we wanted in front of the displays. I’m sorry my pictures are so full of glare! Even on the solstice it’s sunny here.

These days everywhere you look there’s at least a nod to nearby SpaceX, which is making Brownsville grow absurdly fast economically. I’ll post more on that later. In true form, here even Christmas has a flavor of space. (Display not funded by SpaceX.)

Here‘s a traditional contrast: two Christmas trees, one made of tulle and toeshoes, one made of antlers.

A clever record store displayed hits by the Rolling Snowballs and the late great Elfis.

The dentist office sponsors a candy wonderland, with fake children sitting on stools made of giant teeth. Sneaky work there, dentist office! The snow scene in the next one probably gathers the most interest from children who never see snow here. I love that Frosty is falling comically while ice skating. Where did they get the skates?

And here’s the backdrop to the Christmas Village, the lush green Dean Porter Park, next to a resaca. Mexican olive trees are beautiful, with their tight, twisted bark and white flowers.

Amelia Earhart is one of several famous people whom Brownsville boasts about having visited at some point in their lives. I enjoyed my carefree chat with her.

We still had time before the brewery opened, so we hit up the paletas shop, which is kind of an ice cream/ice pop store. Don’t skip one by thinking that’s all it is, though.

My sister used to say the only way to eat a mango was standing in the ocean with it dripping down your elbows. I don’t think she’d had a paleta. There are like six mangos crammed into this one icy, pulpy, handheld, spiritual wonder.

And finally, the destination we’ve been trying for, since last winter, even. You know how there are like two microbreweries on every block these days? Brownsville has its own culture, and it’s not diving into the craft beer business in a hurry. This is the one brewery, named for the street the brewers live on (all the streets in a section downtown are named for planets). So, I guess they’re staying true to their roots while tipping their hats to SpaceX workers? Again, more on that later. The beer was decent, the music was fabulously unexpected (King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard), and the afternoon was wonderful. Tracy beat me at our ramen card game, and I beat him at pool. I love nothing more than wasting time playing games and drinking beer.

On the way back to the campsite we saw the flock of red-crowned parrots that we’d heard fly over every dawn and dusk our first winter here. What immediate nostalgia! I grabbed this terrible shot of two of them on the telephone line, but it captures just how I felt driving home as the sun was setting on the winter solstice. A very Brownsville day.