Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Where Is It?
Roving packs of free-range Christmas carolers could encounter this site while roaming the capital city, looking for somebody to sing to. Do you know where and what it is?
Hint: Near the vantage point from which this photo was shot, there once stood a McDonald’s restaurant.
Hint 2: Although people seem to know what is expected of them in a place like this, what to call it is a matter of some confusion.
Hint 3: On May 21, 1917, springs under this area rose so much that a foot to a foot and a half of water covered the street, curb-to-curb.
The white board with two holes in it is the backside of one of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership’s Christmas decorations on Capitol Plaza at Capitol Avenue and Main Street.
The partnership erected a bench shaped like Santa’s sleigh and four painted plywood panels beside the city Christmas tree for the Bright the Night tree-lighting party Nov. 19. Holiday-theme cartoons cavort on the panel fronts.
They are props revelers can use to pose for photos, and apparently are using.
“It’s been fun since they’ve been out there. We’ll go to work the next morning and they’ll be on a different side of the plaza,” says Gabe Holstrom, executive director of the Downtown Partnership.
The partnership’s Christmas committee brainstormed the boards after the 2017 Bright the Night.
“Last year when we did the Bright the Night event we had Santa Claus out there and he had to stand up the whole time,” Holstrom says. “This time we had the sleigh right in front of the tree, and Santa could sit in the sleigh and have the kids come in and out.”
Who made the panels?
Holstrom says, “Carol Worley’s Uncle Leroy, who lives outside of Dallas, Texas, he’s retired, he offered to make them for the cost of materials. So, yeah, he did it, and then I went down there and picked them up.” Worley is a lawyer with the Worley, Wood & Parrish firm in Little Rock.
What are such panels called?
“I don’t know what the proper term is for that. I like … well, I don’t know,” Holstrom says.
Options include “face-inhole,” “head-in-hole,” “standins,” “comic foregrounds,” “face cutouts,” “photo op boards,” “photo cutouts” …
The boards were moved to the Little Rock River Market briefly for Small Business Saturday but were returned to the plaza, where anyone is welcome to arrange them for personal photo ops.
To photograph yourself in the guise of gingerbread men, Mr. and Mrs. Snowman or a snowgirl and snowboy, one of two dancing trees, or Santa and a child, hand your camera to a trusted stranger while you walk behind the panel and press your face against the hole.
To pose as though engulfed by a life-threatening blizzard, poke your head through the other side.