Winter on the West Coast

San Diego Winter – Images by Will Parson

I’ve never had a white Christmas. Never had to shovel snow from the driveway. Never ridden on a toboggan. Never put rocks in snowballs. Never licked a pole and gotten my tongue stuck.

When you live in San Diego, the holidays come with a completely different set of associations. You trade the blanketed cottages of a Thomas Kinkade painting for one of David Hockney’s swimming pools. The ghost of Christmas-future shakes off his sticky wool robe in favor of some Bermuda shorts. Ralphie Parker doesn’t want a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle. He wants a surfboard.

You won’t find any white Christmas here, but you will get an 80-degree Hanukkah. Maybe that’s nothing to carol about for some, but I bet plenty of people would like to be able to drink iced tea on the beach the weekend before Christmas.

These photos were all taken this December along the coastal communities of San Diego. Happy holidays.