Mature Flâneur
Have Yourself a Jurassic Little Christmas (in Paris)
Festival of Dinosaur Lights at the Jardin des Plantes
Absolutely nothing conveys the spirit of Christmas like dinosaurs. Massive, toothy hordes of them, their multi-colored skins all shimmering and bright, arranged on a football-field-sized garden like some grand-scale evolutionary nativity scene.
That’s what you will find in Paris from now through Jan. 19, at the Jardin des Plantes at the National Museum of Evolution. This is the sixth year in a row for this science extravaganza, which has become as much a feature of the holiday season in Paris as the giant Christmas tree inside the Galéries Lafayette department store. Like the big tree, the life-sized dino-diorama is intended for kids (and what a cool way to teach them evolutionary science). But at the same time, it’s hugely appealing to parents, and those of us who never really outgrew our fascination with dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs are made out of thin fabric painted with vibrant, camouflage-patterned colors. Of course, no one can tell from the fossil records what colors dinosaurs actually were, but…
