Santa Monica Promenade & Pier

After plans to visit the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades on my day off fell through due to its being closed on Tuesdays, I ventured to downtown Santa Monica – DTSM – and the beach. At first I thought I'd wait for my monthly rundown before blogging any of it, but I got more good pictures than a summary blog can accommodate and I needed to write about the Third Street Promenade.


Third Street Promenade

During my first year in LA, Third Street Promenade was one of my best and favorite places to have fun; it was well-landscaped for pedestrians-only shopping and dining, packed with national retailers and some local ones, and included many spots along the way to sit, lounge, or socialize. Its current City of Santa Monica website describes it as world-class, and back then it probably qualified—or close to it.

Third Street Promenade in Spring 2016
Since 2016, online shopping has taken more of a hold (understatement), as it probably would have even without help from the Covid pandemic, so that's an obvious factor in what I saw on Tuesday. Related more specifically to Santa Monica, after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, riots and looting in contiguous Los Angeles spilled over into Santa Monica and a police department that may have been capable of controlling and dispersing more conventional crowds and uprisings, but… this was different.

"I'm so old" I used to love browsing, shopping, and hanging out at malls, but as I recently blogged, the decline and death of the North American mall has disenchanted me and I'd basically quit the habit, anyway.

Returning to "what I saw on Tuesday." A ghost town trying to act brave. A dead mall that hasn't been buried or converted to another use necessarily pretending it won't always be like this. I didn't even try to count the number or percentage of storefronts without tenants. Though I don't recall Third Street Promenade ever being packed with people any time I visited, "sparse" is too generous a word for the current decimation of everything.

I didn't recognize the names of most of the stores! The only brands represented that I'd ever buy from were Barnes & Noble, Anthropologie, and Urban Outfitters. There was a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf I determined to return to before I left, but instead I got a hazelnut frappe at CB&TL when I visited the pier after leaving the promenade.

In the category of "what can we make of this," although Tuesday was January 13th and Christmas is long over (even if you include January 6th, the day of Epiphany as part of the Nativity season), both brick and mortar and online retailers have taken down their Christmas trees, reindeers, and jingle bells because it's time to sell and shop for Valentine's Day, with maybe a thought for MLK Day and Black History Month along the way. But Third Street Promenade still was about trees and lights.

You don't need to search deeply to find articles that analyze all of this from almost any perspective. It doesn't make me feel nostalgic; it just makes me sad. It feels like an icon of so many pasts we knew yet don't truly want to return to, but we don't know what to do with the memories of those pasts or the realities of this present.

Santa Monica Pier

Because I was close to the beach, a visit to Santa Monica Pier was logical. I could pretend to be a tourist! Maybe you already knew that's where Route 66 ends?

I'll wrap this up with some pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

On the way back from the pier I met a flock of seagulls, but I was only quick enough to picture this one.

December 2025 Highlights

• My December header is the Season's Greeting sled Heather painted and I decorated each year with slightly different arrangements of seasonal greenery. I haven't had a place for it the past few years; this one is from a previous place.

• Early December brunch in Santa Monica

• First Trip in a long time to the Getty Center

• Christmas Decorations at The Grove

• First Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Hazelnut Frappe (the only affordable anything at The Grove) in forever. They're still the best!

• Fierce! The Story of Cats at the Natural History Museum

• A quote from Titus for Christmas Eve and semi-bilingual (much more English than español) Eucharist at Saint Mary's Mariposa—a two minute walk away.

Five Minute Friday :: Stable

When all things were wrapped in deep silence,
and night in her swift course was half spent,
your almighty Word, O Lord,
leapt down from your throne in heaven.
Wisdom 18:14-15

• Five Minute Friday :: Stable Linkup at Andrew's Place

Into the old RSV Bible I used and wrote in for a long time, I copied a list of life guidelines I found somewhere. Each was a situational symbol derived from scripture, followed by its meaning as God acts in our lives. When I find them they'll be great to blog, but right now I only can remember the Mark of the Stable and the Mark of the Empty Tomb.

The Mark of the Stable means? Begin where God says! Begin at the very start as a helpless vulnerable infant like Jesus? Yes, but let's also begin every day, every new endeavor, each new relationship and opportunity where God says, which is? On your current longitude and latitude and amidst the social, familial, and occupational places you find yourself right now.

When we study and begin to learn the histories of God's people, we often recognize similarities in our own walk by faith. Like Moses, like jacob-Israel, like Amos. Like Jesus' mother Mary/Miriam and like Jesus himself. Like the newly birthed church we know from Luke's book of Acts.

So God in a recent dream has inspired you to prepare to teach high school in the inner city or in the rural outback; maybe open a bakery and train people who already love to bake into professional expertise; possibly offer your accounting skills to non-profit organizations for a great price.

You don't and you can't start that new morning on the other side of your state or province. Or on the other side of your city or town. The bold startup eventually may take you elsewhere, or to a series of other places, but you begin it here and now.

Andrew loves to feature quotes from well-known people. I'll end this week with one from Gian-Carlo Menotti's one-act opera, Ahmal and the Night Visitors: The child who will do all these wonderful things is the infant who starts out in the manger in a stable in Bethlehem. Where will you start out to do all the wonderful things God calls you to?

The child we seek holds the seas and the winds on his palm.
The child we seek has the moon and the stars at his feet.
Before him, the eagle is gentle the lion is meek.

On love, on love alone will he build his kingdom…
His might will not be built on your toil.
Swifter than lightning he will soon walk among us.
He will bring us new life and receive our death.
And the keys to his city belong to the poor.

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Nativity 2025

For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all.
Titus 2:11

December Menu

Five Minute Friday :: Christmas Sweater

• Five Minute Friday :: Christmas Sweater linkup at Andrew's place

This week Andrew wrote – "penned" with quill – another sonnet, after all.

The way people pick up on trends, phrases, and preferences without a thought bothers me a lot. For example, the idea of an ugly Christmas Sweater makes rounds every year, yet when you look at those various jacquard, fair isle, reindeer, tartan, snoopy, and nativity bear sweaters, very few are objectively "ugly" at all. The adorable sweater illustration Andrew provided is an example, as are the bear and horse in sweaters I got on Creative Market a few years ago.

Though even in this era of covid-tinged casual I'd be hard put to wear one to work, to Sunday church, or to a professional networking event, Christmas sweaters belong around the fireplace, out caroling, at Christmas dinner where they enhance the ambiance and remind everyone not to take themselves so seriously so much of the time.

What else bothers me this time of year? The way people in the global north often get mired in mild to moderate to severe Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD, which is a real thing. It's such a reality that very few people can avoid at least a touch of it when shorter days deprive them of necessary sunlight. But getting consumed by SAD and ignoring the hope Advent brings? Even denying the Light of the World Nativity offers?

Oh, I know. Everything gets too overwhelming, so let's remind each other. Do you have a testimony of light in the darkness? Do you have words about new life from the apparent hopelessness of loss and death? When the days are shortest, nights are longest?

Happy Christmas Sweater time!

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Five Minute Friday :: Penguins

Penguin Group Small with legal reuse rights
by Antarctica Bound on Flickr

• Five Minute Friday :: Penguins Linkup at Andrew's Place

It's no surprise I immediately thought of last spring's Penguin Tariffs and the intelligence those penguins and seals displayed navigating such a clueless injustice.

Here's part of an AI overview:

"Penguin tariffs" refers to tariffs imposed on the Australian territory of Heard and McDonald Islands, an uninhabited island chain populated by penguins and seals. This occurred as part of a broad tariff policy announced by the Trump administration in April 2025, which was criticized as illogical and based on inaccurate data, as the islands have no human population, commercial activity, or trade of their own. The issue gained public attention due to the nonsensical nature of taxing a territory of wildlife, prompting confusion and a viral social media reaction. The hashtag #PenguinsAgainstTrump gained traction on social media. Australia's government called the tariffs "unwarranted" and "not the act of a friend."

Five about Penguins

Although Andrew had predicted he wouldn't be writing sonnets on his weekly host posts, he wrote one this week, and what fun! He observed how South Pole and North Pole are many miles apart, so at first glance, that means penguins don't participate in Christmas festivities featuring Santa, Reindeer, and Polar Bears. Or Elves. "At first glance," because penguins are a major theme on Nativity tide paper products (wrapping paper, greeting cards, retail store displays, home decor) and apparel for all ages. Penguin Tariffs may have been paradoxical, but despite their South Pole geography, most people don't consider penguins incompatible with Christmas.

To redirect this narrative, black and white long has been considered a color palette that always works. (Another is permutations of red, yellow, and blue.) Does that mean you need to like them? No, of course not. Does it mean they can't be done badly? Both of those and some others definitely can be done up disastrously! In addition, formal tuxedo and ultra-formal white tie attire comes to mind with black and white. Some make a lot of the contrast between white and black, and even assign positive traits to white, negative ones to black.

What more can I say about penguins? They impress me as smart, fish-loving, and friendly, but probably not cuddly. They're picturesque and appealing. And penguins are an out of the ordinary Five Minute Friday prompt.

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December 2024

• The header is my design for the four Sundays of Advent. All of them were in December this year!

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary blog for December

• Friday 06 December :: donut and celestial seasonings tea in the same red cup as October's. Did I mention the Asian-owned Los Amigos Donut Shop? This is Los Angeles!

• Saturday 07 December :: Advent and Christmas decorating, lunch, and games at the West Los Angeles church

• Saturday 14 December :: Christmas Tree Decorating, Lunch, and Concert at Christ the King in Torrance. I'm opening with red poinsettias and a solo Christmas Tree. I wish I'd counted how many trees there were! This is one of the only ones I captured with a fairly clean background.

• They served lunch in the narthex—my fave, build your own sandwich with condiments, etc. We ate at tables around the labyrinth.

• The lovely concert featured two keyboard players on both piano and organ and a vocalist. We had dessert afterwards, and I won a consolation prize of a Nativity ornament in the drawing.

• If you use google photos you may know they provide templates we can use to create collages, and google AI sometimes makes surprise collages using templates not available to the general public (that would be us). This 15-picture arrangement provides a perfect overview of the day.

• Monday 16 December :: Los Angeles has some stunning sunsets, but I'm not often there to see them and I sometimes don't trust my phone camera enough. It was almost the winter solstice when I captured this nearby sky.

• Tuesday 24 December :: Christmas Eve at Mount Olive ELCA in Santa Monica; I was organist for the German service and then I attended the family service with music by the semi-resident jazz band. This is another google AI collage that perfectly expresses the mood around campus.

• Wednesday 25 December :: Christmas Day worship and a sumptuous dinner at LA Bread of Life Foursquare Church in mid city LA. It's an actual storefront!

• Wednesday evening 25 December :: Christmas evening dinner in Inglewood—no pictures

• The First Sunday of Christmas 29 December :: Informal Lessons and Carols and Eucharist in West LA—no pictures

• Monday 30 December the Sixth Day of Christmas :: mid-afternoon lunch with friends; here are two views of our salad