alternative Christmas tree

Xandari’s Holiday Tree is Up and Running

/ Seth Inman / 2 Comments

 

A homemade “loomi” lamp

 

Like any other tree acquired this time of year, Xandari’s holiday tree had to be put on the roof of a car — in this case, the resort’s golfcart — to transport it up to the lobby area from its site of construction. We snaked an LED “hose” through most of the paper lanterns in the bamboo structure, and now we have balsa-wood bird ornaments made by Costa Rican artists (these birds normally hang in our gift shop). Finally, I made a modular paper lamp recycled from old manila folders (template and how-to pending, but the lamp is basically a DIY Loomi light).

Tomorrow, when I finish the second loomi tree “star,” I’ll put up photos of the smaller tree that Edwin and I made for the Xandari Spa.

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Sneak Peek at Xandari’s Upcoming Holiday Tree

/ Seth Inman / 1 Comment

The Raxa Collective Holiday tree at Cardamom County, 2012.

Two years ago, the Raxa Collective team designed a new kind of conical decoration to replace the traditional pine tree at Cardamom County, one of Raxa Collective’s properties in Kerala, India. Pictured left, this tree received many compliments from employees and guests alike, was considered a success all around, and came out again last year with some new ornaments at Cardamom County. For the last several years, Xandari has relied on a small palm tree from the gardens here as the holiday ornament, but the resort has been looking for alternatives. When I showed the team what might now be considered the “Raxa Collective tree,” they were immediately excited and started planning to build one straight away.

And so it was that Edwin (José Luis‘s brother) and I found ourselves in two of the several bamboo groves on Xandari property with a saw and a machete on Tuesday. We started out with a simple sketch design of our planned tree based on the images we’d seen of the Indian version, then set out to cut a couple bamboo poles for the construction phase. We knew we’d need three 2.1 meter poles for the pyramid sides, so we got them from one type of medium-thickness bamboo. Then we needed twenty-one rods of seven different lengths (see design photo above), so we went to a grove of thinner type of bamboo.  Continue reading →