First Sunday of Advent

There's a rule here: no Christmas decorations before the First Sunday of Advent.

However, today all the gloves are off!

So I hit the ground running: walked the dog a mile, then put him on a leash on the grass while I took down the Thanksgiving items and put up the wreath on the door, the Santa Claus moon flag, the mailbox cover with the goofy moose on it, and the Christmas greens basket. At this point I let Tucker go inside and then started on the real work: the lights. I managed to get through this practically unscathed.

Decided I wanted to go back to the blue lights this year. Now Saturday at Lowe's I bought six strings of 100 blue lights on discount, but we still had blue lights, so I put those out instead. Thinking I should have put the Lowes lights on instead; some of these are badly faded and the blues don't even match. When I took a photo one string even looked green! Maybe I'll redo. Also put up the Christmas tree with the multicolor lights and the wreath, which has the multicolor seed lights on it. I could probably go out and get a new blue set for the tree, but I prefer the wreath in colors, and don't think I'll find them in blue anyway.

I didn't have a terrible time with the lights, but I do understand why my dad always swore while he did this!

Our neighbor Ashley came out while I was working on this, to take out little Diesel (he's some kind of Lhasa Apso or shih-tzu mix) and Nala, who's some type of Rottweiler cross, and we were chatting for a while. It was just her birthday and she'd been to Colorado as a birthday gift. They had snow and everything. She kept asking me if I needed help. Maybe I was just looking particularly decrepit this morning? I know I didn't feel decrepit; when I put up Christmas decorations I feel about fifteen (except my back didn't hurt this dang bad when I was fifteen).

A year or two ago James bought this set of four LED snowflakes that were on clearance for $7. I put them behind the three log deer as kind of a fun display. Didn't use any of the lighting effects, though; maybe will try them out later. You can twinkle and flash and make them chase, eight different effects in all.

Before dark I had also put all of the candoliers in the windows (blue lights as well; frosted for the upstairs and clear for the library downstairs), the multicolor changing bulb candle in the kitchen window, and the two flickering candles in James' "man cave." These eat up four AA batteries, but they will last through Epiphany, even though the flicker will be minimal by then!

My last step was to turn on the two flickering candles at 5:30 (they have timers and will keep them on for five hours) and put the batteries in the seed lights (this also has a timer that will turn on the same time every night and go off six hours later). And all is lit.

Also did my usual Sunday chores (towels washed, master bath cleaned, meds sorted for the week) and managed to sit and listen to some Christmas music and work on a story. It ended on a sniffle, so I think I achieved my goal. 😀

The Battle of the Christmas Lights

Anyway, if you've read this blog you may remember this account from last year when I put up the Christmas tree:

Except I had to fuss over the lights. Again. Last year the Lightkeeper Pro gadget saved my bacon. I had one half of the middle section of the tree lights out and about three pulls on the Pro reconnected the circuits. This year, no dice. I tried the other method, which is something like using a stud finder for the Pro to find where the broken circuit is, but nothing would revive the string. I even tried replacing all the burned out bulbs, until I ran out of replacement bulbs and that didn't work. Almost every bulb in the string must be burned out; no wonder it won't light.

Now I did have extra strings of fifty lights that I bought for the miniatures tree. I had to finagle it, using the extension cord I use for the star at the top of the tree, which is dropped down the trunk. I fastened the string in place and, well, it worked: the middle of the tree doesn't have a dark spot.

So, this meant I had to do something about it after Christmas, and dutifully I bought several sets of replacement bulbs, some from Walmart, some from Amazon, and, when I put away all the other Christmas things, I left the blacked-out section of the tree out in a corner of the library. I also left the library tree there because it had a big section of lights out as well—I'd been swapping lighted bulbs from the "back" of the tree to replace burned out lights at the front for several years now. I should have heeded the admonition on the Lightkeeper Pro instructions, which told me that every bulb that burned out reduced the light string's efficiency, and too many bulbs out led to whole strings burning out.

There it sat, and every four weeks in my planner journal was the reminder: fix the Christmas lights. Sometimes it appeared on one of the weekly pages: fix the Christmas lights. As summer wended its way into fall, the reminders I gave myself were insistent: fix the Christmas lights. And there was always an excuse. Until October 3, it was too hot. Back in January and February, it was too cold. Or today I had to...

So there it was, right after Thanksgiving, and had I fixed the lights?

You bet my best procrastinator's trophy with the diamond embellishments on it I hadn't. Somewhere up there I saw my mother looking down at me with "that look" and her hands on her hips.

So I girded my loins and December 2 (!!!) I marched back down into the library to start the job, to be flummoxed first thing. Since so many lights were burned out, and since those branches of the tree wouldn't light up again until a certain number of bulbs had been replaced—I found out later there had to be less than eight burnt out lights in each particular string—how would I keep track of what I fixed and what I didn't? I cursed the socket of the overhead light, which is nonfunctional since a light bulb broke inside it several years ago; we even tried turning the current off and prying the metal parts of the bulb out of the socket with a pliers, but it just broke into tiny pieces. We have three bright lights down there that make it easy to find the books, but not for detail work like that. I had to bring a flashlight to see which bulbs had the burnt-out marks (and you couldn't see them in the blue and green bulbs), and to keep track of which branches were finished I found bright orange embroidery thread.

So on each of the branches that were out, I had to count how many bulbs were on that particular branch and what color they were. The lower set of four branches had seven lights, with two repeating colors, the upper set only six lights, with one repeating color. One at a time I pulled the bulbs, determined which color it was, in the case of the blues and the greens tested them to see if they were burnt out (the big black mark in the middle of the lighter colored bulbs was a dead—no pun intended—giveaway) on the Lightkeeper Pro bulb testing gadget, and replaced them with one of the same color. When I finished replacing all the bulbs, I tied a short length of the bright orange floss around the branch, to indicate it was complete.

While I was down there I listened to a podcast I had found, "Can't Wait for Christmas," done by comedian Tim Babb. This is a goofy podcast, but I enjoyed it and it really killed the three hours I spent down there. Tim's podcast features "Five Golden Things" (five notable things to do with Christmas), a feature about some aspect to do with Christmas, an ongoing contest about which version of a certain Christmas carol is the best, and other odd things.

And, of course, at the end of three hours, I was done!

Well, not exactly. Because even though I had bought what seemed like a lot of Christmas bulbs, some from Lowe's at the end of 2018, and some that I'd ordered on Amazon in January of 2019. I was out of bulbs for several colors and not finished replacing them yet.

All together now: Arrrrrrrgh!

Tossed on some clothes and went to Lowe's. They had no multicolor packets, so I got five of each individual color. It still wasn't enough, so I went to Walmart and found a different brand of replacement bulbs; got as many multicolors as I could and then some extra clear bulbs. The project continued next day, and it was a great moment when I got to the last few bulbs and the rest of the Christmas tree lit up! At that point it was only a few more minutes before the rest were replaced and the tree was fully lit.

Well, almost. There were still a half dozen bulbs that had to be replaced elsewhere on the tree, but that was done quickly.

I discovered an interesting thing: the two different brands, GE from Lowe's and Lightkeeper Pro bulbs from Walmart, actually had two different colors for blue and yellow. The GE blue was a light blue and their yellow was more an amber color. The Lightkeeper bulbs had a dark velvety blue and a bright clear yellow. So when I got on to replacing the bulbs on the library tree (a less strenuous task), I found myself swapping out lemon yellow bulbs so they alternated with amber, and the sky blue so it alternated with the dark. Since I completely ran out of pink/purple bulbs by the time I was halfway through, the library tree ended up dotted with a few clear white bulbs, one that I made sure would be over the Nativity ornament, and another that would go behind the bookstore ornament to best show it off.

I used up all but about eighteen of the newer batch of bulbs, and it was a good thing I had gone out on December second, because by Friday all the replacement bulbs were gone from Lowe's and only a few remained at Walmart. By waiting so long I had just squeaked by.

In the end it was a long tedious process. But the Christmas tree, indeed both the big tree and the library tree, looked lovely, and checking them out every day quite made up for being crouched up on the footrest in the library, shining a flashlight into bulbs to see if they were green or blue.

But never, never again.

[Later: I went out and bought all the replacement bulbs I could find after Christmas.]

A Thanksgiving Feast With a Side of Owl

As for many years now, Thanksgiving Day began with the Macy's parade. I still remember fondly waking up upon Thanksgiving morning and rushing to get breakfast so I could park myself before the television and watch the parades on CBS. They had the "Thanksgiving Parade Jubilee," showing parts of the J.L. Hudson parade in Detroit (Hudson's is long gone, but one of their offspring survives: Target; the parade survives as "America's Parade," I discovered this year), Gimbel's parade in Philadelphia (Gimbel's is gone, but Philly still has a parade), the pre-recorded Eaton's Santa Claus Parade (which, as I read in a book about the parade, long confused Canadian broadcasters on why the Americans wanted a Christmas parade on Thanksgiving; Eaton's is also gone, but Toronto still holds the parade), and finally the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade usually coming in last to present Santa Claus. In the real "old days" it was hosted by Captain Kangaroo from the Treasure House, later William Conrad took over the host duties from a richly-appointed men's den, drinking a toast at the very end. Later they ditched the Hudson's parade and started showing a parade from Hawaii with Jack Lord as the host (who the dickens wanted to watch flowers on Thanksgiving? I wondered), and Gimbel's got tossed in favor of a Walt Disney parade. Now CBS also has Macy's coverage and I heard the CW has the parade from Philadelphia. Probably had I known the latter I might have changed channels. Macy's has turned into, amazingly, not a big ad for Macy's, but a big ad for a bunch of young singing stars. Most of them were good, but who really cares? The announcers spend too much time yapping and promoting upcoming NBC shows.

This year, it was the commercials that were amazing. First came a four-minute epic from Xfinity, about a distant traveler who comes home for the holidays. Next came a magical visit to "The Time Shop" (I want to visit there!) with echoes of Narnia. And finally a little girl gets to ask all those pressing things a kid wants to know from the oddest of sources.

In the meantime James was in the kitchen cooking up goodies for our Friendsgiving feast, corn casserole and brown-sugar-glazed carrots, plus we had some Belgian chocolate seashells to bring along. We set the National Dog Show to recording and skipped out about one o'clock to find the feast about to begin at the Lucyshyn house. We had turkey, duck, pot roast, spiral-sliced ham, a whole passel of vegetables, Ron's mashed potatoes, a relish tray, bread, and, after all that, two kinds of pies, blondies, the chocolates, and brown bread with raisins (Oreta had to give out the recipe for the latter because it was so popular). We spent the time chatting, enjoying, and digesting.

The apex of the day was just after the sun had set. A line of orange and yellow was still on the western horizon, brightening the gap between two houses behind the Lucyshyn back yard, but above it, it was beginning to get dark and a quarter moon with Venus dangling beneath it was hung in the deep blue western sky just above the orange streak. I only had my phone with me, but I thought I might try to take a picture of it. So I went outside and snapped several photos.

Clair had followed me outside and both of us heard an owl hoot several times. Clair suddenly said "There it is!" and  pointed out the tallest tree in the neighborhood, silhouetted black against the southwestern sky. There at the top of the tree was the owl—we could see it stretch out every time it hooted, showing its head and tail! And then a few minutes later a second owl flew up to the same tree, different branch, and they hooted back and forth at each other for a few minutes, sketched against the sky like an Arthur Rackham illustration. Magical!

We drove home after admiring yet again the neighborhood overachievers nearby (the house at the very entrance of the development across from Alex and Pat's development) who had the front of their house covered with lighted Christmas trees, a manger scene, Snoopy on his doghouse, light spheres hanging from the trees, and so much more. (As a friend of mine might say, it looked like something had barfed up Christmas all over the place.) When I got home I went to the Cornell Ornithology website to identify the hoots, and it seemed we had two Great Horned Owls up in that tree! Clair confirmed that it was probably mating season for them, and what we saw might have been an attempt at courtship.

Turkey for dinner, owls in the night sky, and budgie song when we got home: that's what I call a Thanksgiving Day!

Trim Up the Tree!

I threw my schedule to the wind today (it's housecleaning day, which mainly means scrubbing the bathrooms) and first toted all the packages and cards to the post office (when did parcel post get so expensive? there's only a dollar difference between parcel post and priority mail!) for dispatching, then came home, cleaned everything out of the corner (the rocker will sit in the other corner, in front of the phone, awkwardly, until the season is over) and commenced to decorate the tree.

Except I had to fuss over the lights. Again. Last year the Lightkeeper Pro gadget saved my bacon. I had one half of the middle section of the tree lights out and about three pulls on the Pro reconnected the circuits. This year, no dice. I tried the other method, which is something like using a stud finder for the Pro to find where the broken circuit is, but nothing would revive the string. I even tried replacing all the burned out bulbs, until I ran out of replacement bulbs and that didn't work. Almost every bulb in the string must be burned out; no wonder it won't light.

Now I did have extra strings of fifty lights that I bought for the miniatures tree. I had to finagle it, using the extension cord I use for the star at the top of the tree, which is dropped down the trunk. I fastened the string in place and, well, it worked: the middle of the tree doesn't have a dark spot.

In the last few years I've wondered if I have too many ornaments on the tree. I try not to add any more, but occasionally a Hallmark ornament or two catches the eye. This year I put the new ones on the little shelfy things on the television. But which of the older ones would I discard? My tree (actually all the trees) isn't a color or flower or specialty "theme" tree fit for a magazine shoot. Each of the ornaments on the main tree are there because they are loved, from the Carleton Lassie specialties to the glass budgies to my beloved satin balls to the long ornaments that were my mom's that I tried to fix up and failed at miserably, but James talked me into keeping. It would be like giving away a pet or a child.

The last step is the tinseling. Without it the tree looks naked, just a collection of branches with colorful figurals laid on. This is trimmed from bottom to top so the effect is like a waterfall. This year's weather, while damp and depressing for the past three days, was actually fortuitous for using icicles. I have decorated the tree on a day so warm I had to wear gloves because the strands of tinsel stuck to my perspiring fingers. Today, my fingers were cold through most of the process; uncomfortable, but perfect for pinching four to five strands out at a time and draping them over a branch. It takes a while, but all good things take time.

The final touch is Mother and Dad's nativity set, which is arranged under the tree in a board stable with one yellow light bulb through the convenient hole in the rear near the roof. It's never finished without that.

I like to think of it as an annual magnum opus, my Christmas masterpiece, a painting I do once year. Pretty much all the elements are the same, with some new things tossed in occasionally, but every year they are rearranged in a different pattern. Kind of like life if you think about it.

The First Sunday of Advent

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.                      Book of Common Prayer, collect for the first Sunday of Advent

It's been a busy Sunday. I did not intend to go out today, but we needed something immediately, so I ran to Kroger for it. By the time I got home, the temperature was almost up to 70℉ (we've had a warm front come in, but thankfully it's supposed to be gone by tomorrow), so I had to quicktime it to get the lights outside before the sun swung around and turned the brick front of the house into a bake oven. The net lights properly fit the trimmed bushes (hurrah!), and I had to rearrange the bead garland on the little lighted porch tree (I'd rather tinsel a tree than drape garland—ugh!), and then program that temperamental timer, but it all finally worked out. I'd already put up the wreath, the greens basket, the mailbox cover, and the banner, so all it took was to decorate the two chairs with garland and holly and perch stuffed Santas on them, then lean the little metal sled against the side window, and I was done. (Realized later I'd forgotten to put out the log deer, but I can do that quickly tomorrow.)

Also put the candoliers in the windows, pulled out at least one box (the dining room one, but the table needs to be polished with mineral oil first), and put all the wreaths on the inside doors. I've even managed a candle in the kitchen window, where we've never had one before.

Of course everything is untidy right now and it makes me crazy. But it will come together the longer I work.

Spent the afternoon listening to Christmas music off TuneIn radio, found a little news between the football games this evening, and then watched some Christmas programs: Mickey's Christmas Carol (James' favorite) and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (my favorite) before Alaska: the Last Frontier came on. Oh, and have sorted the pills for this week and washed towels.

As always this Advent, I pray for health and happiness.

Christmas in the Air

As I mentioned, James volunteered to work today so he wouldn't get drafted, especially on New Year's Day. Plus it was double time and would make up a little for his three doctor's appointments last week. So this Christmas morning James was up at seven to work. I got to sleep in a bit.

James was twiddling his thumbs when I got up and had breakfast. I was changing channels looking for something Christmasy, and stumbled over Come to the Stable on FXM. I wish I'd known it was on. I hadn't seen it in years. It's not really a Christmas movie, but begins in winter when two nuns arrive in New England to try to found a children's hospital. I'd forgotten how funny bits of it was, especially Sister Margaret driving the jeep.

Tucker was very patient and waited for me to finish with the movie to go out. It was very cold out, in the high 20s with a sharp wind snapping the St. Nicholas banner and the flag. It felt good! There were high clouds and bits of sky showing as we strolled the neighborhood. Someone down the street was having company for dinner. The cars filled their long driveway and spilled out to the street.

James took a break before lunch and then we had presents! O, what a haul! Four books and two DVDs, the books all from my Amazon wish list: World War II in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Radio (with a photo of Jack Comley, my favorite radio talk show host ever), Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Britcom FAQ.  The DVDs were both Rick Steves: his new episodes for 2017-2018, and all his specials (even the Easter special). I gave James two military nonfiction books, Andy Weir's new book Artemis, the second season of WKRP in Cincinnati, and a Jethro Tull concert DVD. And of course the chair he was sitting in! (We discovered Tucker sleeping in it last night, and it looked so sweet, the little dog curled up in the big red chair next to the Christmas tree.

Put on The House Without a Christmas Tree while we had lunch: our turkey leftovers from West Cobb Diner on Friday night, a clementine, and Terry's dark chocolate orange slices. Tried not to snack too much so we could save the calories for the feast at the Butlers!

While James waited for someone to call, I also washed some towels and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and made the bed.

Spent the later afternoon watching The Homecoming and feeling very drowsy, so took a 45-minute nap (well, I tried to; I really didn't sleep much), then took Tucker for a walk, fixed him a special Christmas dinner with a little chicken broth and beef and carrot dog-food puree, got dressed and washed my face, brought James his shoes (otherwise he was ready to go) and a hairbrush, and put the gifts together.

At five o'clock James signed off having had nary a call, and we loaded up the car with presents and chocolate cake and were off to the Butlers to enjoy three hours of friends, food and fun. People had just sat down to dinner and we availed ourselves of apple cider basted turkey, spiral-sliced ham, pot roast, mashed potatoes, noodle kugel, sprouts, and carrots. Dessert was two homemade pies, fruitcake cookies, our chocolate cake and a coconut cake, and some Andes mints we also brought. Once the feasting was complete, we gathered in the living room for gifts. We got many lovely things, too numerous to list.

Journeyed home about eight, stopping at a housing plat along the way to see their decorations. One end definitely had a "glitter gulch"! Yet another lawn was covered with inflatables: two Mickey Mouses, a Minnie Mouse, a Minion, Olaf the snowman, Santa in an airplane, Santa with his sleigh, and about a dozen more.

Once home we watched the Call the Midwife Christmas special—very interesting story based around "the Big Freeze," the cold winter of 1962-1963. Will the actress who played Barbara not be in the new season? They have sent her and her husband the curate to another church for six months. I've always loved Barbara and will miss her.

Books and Christmas Lights in Our Hearts

It's almost as hard to sleep on Christmas Eve as it is to sleep on Christmas morning, which explains why we were up at eight o'clock this morning. James thought about making biscuits, but I scotched the idea. If you're going to be stuffing yourself on carbs soon, better save them for the one-time-a-year yummies, and that last word definitely describes Lin's pies and Ron's mashed potatoes!

But we were intending to go out and have a good time anyway.

First we had to start with the adult mundane stuff: that 32 percent off coupon at CVS (and a CVS gift card) made buying stuff we needed, like Band-Aids, Neosporin, and the like a good bargain. Once that was all taken care of, it was off to Acworth, enjoying Christmas displays in front of people's homes, as we go a back way through country roads. I needed one more gift, and there it was at Books-a-Million. James got a few magazines and a game, then we had hot peppermint cocoa to make the trip really worthwhile. 😉

We took a few minutes off to get James' truck some gasoline—why is gas 14¢ a gallon cheaper in Acworth?—and then had lunch at Panera. It wasn't raining, but it was a grey and damp day, so hot soup hit the spot!

Then it was on to Barnes & Noble. Perhaps everyone at the mall doing their last-minute Christmas shopping were in bad tempers, but at both bookstores everyone was full of good cheer. Used my second 20 percent off newstand purchase for a Christmas "Landscape" and a cross-stitch magazine and the "Writer's Digest" yearbook and bought James an aviation magazine.

Headed home in the gloom to find the television still playing Christmas music for Snowy. We sat and relaxed for a while, then when it started getting dark went out to look at Christmas lights. We used to do this after we ate dinner, and it would be like by the time we went out (around 7:30) half the houses would have their lights turned off already. Timers, people, timers! Even if you have to be out, your lights will be on! They don't cost that much!

We were listening to Christmas music from one of the local stations through most of the ride and had the windows down (we were bundled up and it was only 45). We just stayed in Smyrna; went up toward downtown and drove around there looking at the lights, then checked out some side streets. Went down Bank Street with all their delicious new Craftsman-style homes, and crossed Atlanta Road to check out the "Craftsman" units on "old" Spring Road and opposite the railroad tracks. Our final stop was the unusual development near the end of Old Concord Road: the homes are quite close to each other and all have double glass front doors.

Some people still didn't have all their lights on, as late as seven o'clock! Some lights came on just as we were driving by at 7:15! One of our favorite things wasn't there: one of the houses near downtown Smyrna has this swoopy star that looks like a comet, but it didn't seem to be up, let alone on. But we saw two pairs of the same figures: Yoda and Darth Vader next to each other. One set was made of lights and the other set was inflatable, on a tiny lawn filled with inflatables: they also had a Dory, the M&M guys, Santa in a helicopter, a snowman, and more.

Dinner was kinda small. We picked out some shrimp to have as shrimp scampi, with linguini, but we should have bought more shrimp. We were trying to keep costs down, so basically James had nine shrimp and I had eight. This would have been fine if they were jumbo shrimp, but they weren't. I was hoping we had some clam chowder left in the larder, but almost all the clam chowder went away in the Great Sodium Purge, and the one can we did have amazingly seemed to have come from the old house! Neither of us wanted to eat that! We did find some vegetable orzo soup and shared that, and had gingerbread sticks for dessert.

During dinner we watched the Christmas episode of Remember WENN ("Christmas in the Airwaves"). Noticed the costume designer seemed to work it out that when Scott and Betty are next to each other they are mostly in red and green. :-)

For the last story of the night, I played The Little Drummer Boy. I still have my VHS version because the DVD is missing bits of the soundtrack, and it looks terrible to boot ("restored" version my foot). But as always the story is luminous.

The Christmas Tree Distraction

Well, it certainly was an interesting day. Not in the Chinese sense, just...different.

The original plan for today was that James would go off to his club meeting Christmas party, and I would have my annual orgy decorating the tree. Well, Atlanta had about eight inches (at least) of snow yesterday. This is nothing in New England and Michigan and Minnesota and up in the "great white north" over the border in Canada. But the folks up there have snow tires, snow plows, snow shovels, snow blowers, plentiful sand trucks, and enough snow yearly that they know how to drive in it. (Well, judging by the accidents on the news, at least they should!) Your average Atlantan has no experience with snow. He may have all-weather tires but no snow experience. Plus the ground always starts as warm, so there is always ice under the snow. I don't know about you, but my car is not Sonia Heine or Michelle Kwan, and neither is any other vehicle in the metro area.

So we had been snowed in yesterday and it snowed more during the night, and we woke up to a beautiful white world. It had snowed so much the bird feeders were blocked with snow and there were 7 1/2 inches of snow on the deck. James' party was canceled. Instead he continued working on his computer, which died in the middle of a Windows update. It's just...stuck. So I set up an account for him on my computer, in case he needed it.

My project began when James and I cleared the rocking chair and other things out of the corner, I vacuumed, and then I commenced bringing the four parts of the Christmas tree upstairs. After a brief gaffe when I put the wrong part into the stand assembly, I got the tree together and plugged it in.

Arggh! Half the string in the center section was out! Now what would I do? This is our practically brand new tree, the one we got at Kmart in 2014. It didn't look terribly awful, but there was a dark spot around the "waist" of the tree, and this has never been an overly bright tree. I supposed I could have tried putting light colored ornaments (the white and pink satin balls, for example, the snowman ornament, the unicorn in a stocking, etc.) on that dark section, but I was pretty upset.

In the meantime James noticed he was down to six of his homemade burritos. He had meat and beans, but needed wraps and cheese.

By this time it was noon, the sky had cleared and turned a brilliant blue, and the snow was melting rapidly in the streets and was falling in blobs from tree branches and other tall structures. People were out walking. We called Hobby Lobby to see if they had a gadget called a Lightkeeper Pro; they did, and we had them hold it for us. Then we got in the truck and drove there via the main roads, which were pretty clear. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but what there was was brisk.

We picked it up and then went to Publix, where we did the shopping, including ingredients for the burritos and the twofers. We were starving by the time we got home because it was wayyyy after two, but I only cut off a little of the loaf of French bread before I girded my courage and tried the Lightkeeper Pro.

I've been hearing about this gadget for years in various Christmas groups, and most of the time it's positive. It looks like a plastic gun with several parts, runs on included batteries, and has a couple of different ways of correcting Christmas light string (only miniature lights) problems, the most common being the "quick fix trigger method." There is a socket connector at the front of the LP. You pick out any light socket in the part of a light string that does not work, pull out the light bulb, and plug the LP into that empty socket, then you press the trigger. It works by overriding a burned-out filament and fixing the shunt that make electricity flow through the string. If it doesn't work after thirty presses, there is an alternative method called an audible voltage detector, which reads like voodoo to me.

And it worked! It needed only about three pulls of the trigger to fix the string. There were also two burned-out bulbs which I moved to the back of the tree.

I spent the rest of late afternoon decorating the tree, interrupted by some supper between the ornaments and the tinsel. I watched Christmas Is, The City That Forgot About Christmas, For Better or For Worse: the Bestest Present, For Better or For Worse:The Christmas Angel, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, and finally, Raggedy Ann and Andy in the Great Santa Claus Caper. And then about four or five episodes of Rehab Addict during the tinseling.

The tinsel took forever. I hope I never have to put icicles on a tree at night again. Even with the lamps on it was hard to see to layer the branches and the static electricity was appalling. It's bad enough that these modern icicles are so thin. They kept whipping around and attaching themselves to everything but the tree.

But finally it was time for the final touch: the manger scene under the tree.

It became immediately apparent that we were going to have no more luck keeping Tucker's tail away from the tinsel than in previous years, so the baby gate is back up in front of the tree.

As a reward for creating colorful sparkle, there was gingerbread with whipped cream for dessert and a viewing of Mercy Mission: the Rescue of Flight 771, followed by a John Denver and the Muppets chaser.

The Lights of Christmas

Maybe that's what I fell in love with first.

I was a color junkie as a kid. Rainbows. 64-count boxes of Crayola crayons, where my mom just couldn't understand why a 48-count just wasn't enough. But the best thing of all was Christmas lights. Back when I was small the bulbs were fat and bright, red, yellow-orange, blue, green, white, and the miniature ones came later. I might have gotten it from my parents; I remember their delight in a miniature set which had bulbs of two different colors, covered with a clear plastic crystal icicle-type cover.

Who invented Christmas lights?

The Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights

Untangling the History of Christmas Tree Lights

A Brief History of Christmas Lights

From Edison to LED

The Curious Evolution of Holiday Lights

Might Christmas Tree Candles Make a Comeback?

And we can't talk about Christmas tree lights without this lovingly reconstructed site, Old Christmas Tree Lights.

Rudolph Day, June 2017

"Rudolph Day" is a way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year long. You can read a Christmas book, work on a Christmas craft project, listen to Christmas music or watch a Christmas movie.

Here we are already at "Leon Day" ("Noel" spelt backwards)! The new year is fast becoming the old year, as time spins its inexorable thread. One hundred years ago, the items you see above were common Christmas decorations. The Santa Claus on the left is called a "belsnickel," a tradition among the Pennsylvania Germans, and is also a candy container. Many other designs of candy containers existed: reindeer, snowmen, sleighs. This belsnickel not only carries a sack for gifts, but, as in German tradition der Weihnachtsmann brings the Christmas tree, a little fir tree.

The Santa on the right is one of many "figural" electric Christmas bulbs that were popular in the early 20th century. They came in various Christmasy themes, but also in the shape of animals and fruits, and in media shapes like Snow White and the seven dwarves, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Pluto, and even comic strip figures like Felix the Cat and Spark Plug the horse from "Barney Google."

The beautiful ornament in the middle is called a "Dresden," because they were made in Dresden, Germany, the home of so many beautiful Christmas ornaments. Although they look metallic, Dresdens were actually made of cardboard. Wet cardboard was pressed into a detailed mold, one sheet for each side of the ornament. When dry, the two pieces were glued together and then hand-painted. Some were of one color, perhaps silver, gold, bronze, others multicolor like this rooster, and sometimes trimmed with gold tinsel. They came in all sorts of designs: animals, fruits, vegetables, angels, small children, "Kriss Kringle," even airships and motorcars.


Deck the Halls: Treasures of Christmas Past, Robert M. Merck
If you like what you've seen so far, you'll probably love this thin 1992 volume of photos of all sorts of vintage Christmas ornaments taken from author Merck's private collection. This must have the largest collection of color photographs of figural bulbs that I've ever seen in one book (even Schiffer books).

Modern readers may find many of the Santa Claus figures a bit...stern. Even threatening. But these Santa figures were based on the original St. Nicholas, who, while fond of children, was still a disciplinarian. One hundred years ago children looked forward to his visit with as much fear as anticipation. In many households a man posing as Santa/Belsnickel/St. Nicholas would come to the door and question the children about their behavior during the year. We all hear the jokes about coal in your stocking, but what parent ever goes through with it? Back then they did—and naughty children often watched their brothers and sisters play with simple toys and dolls and eat candy (a rare thing in those days) while they had a handful of switches (thin tree branches) with which they would be whipped. Nor was Santa always in red. Victorian "scraps" show him in every color, even brown and gray.

Merck also shows off a small collection of ornaments made with cotton batting. These ornaments are rare because the white cotton dirtied easily in homes heated with coal and many still lit with gas and kerosene and were thrown out when they got grimy.

Pages 38 and 39 show off Merck's vintage tree, with Pennsylvania "Dutch" Putz below, to splendid advantage. A great used book find for the lover of vintage Christmas ornaments.

Rudolph Day, January 2017

"Rudolph Day" is a way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year long. You can read a Christmas book, work on a Christmas craft project, listen to Christmas music or watch a Christmas movie.

Do you love photographs like this as much as I do? Do you sometimes want to leap into vintage photographs—especially Christmas photographs—and see what it was all really like? To see the ornaments you remember from Grandma's Christmas tree in the store window all new and shiny like they are here? To look overhead and see Christmas garlands and wreaths overhang the city streets, and then pan downward for the elaborately decorated Christmas windows showing this year's novelty toys, games, fashions, furniture, and appliances? To see the shoppers dressed in the clothing of the time and listen to their chatter? Maybe it would be something funny—"My goodness, my last date was a real sad apple! I told him '23 skidoo!'"—or it could even be something sad: "I wish Bob could be home for Christmas. Being stationed in the South Pacific must be gruesome, and Mama and Papa miss him so much." There could be happy smells of roasting peanuts and chestnuts from street vendors, the scent of coffee wafting out of a nearby coffee shop, the tantalizing odor of that Chinese restaurant down the street. On a cold day your scarf would flutter in your face and the ubiquitous awnings over store windows would flap in the breeze, and once your shopping was done you'd be glad to retreat to a warm diner for "a cup of joe" and some pie or the bus station to wait for your ride home.

Then I have a book for you! This is A Very Vintage Christmas by Bob Richter. Richter collects all things vintage Christmas, starting from when he was a little boy and his father gave him a box of old Christmas ornaments to start his collection. The book is filled with beautiful full-color photos of vintage ornaments ranging from gilded paper Dresdens and kugels to turn-of-the-century figurals to wire-trimmed "scraps" to unsilvered paper-capped World War II ornaments. He chats about the best way to decorate a Christmas tree, how to make little Christmas "vignettes" for every room of your house, and things that you can collect that have nothing to do with ornaments and lights: vintage Christmas cards, old photographs, postcards, placards once used in stores, Christmas sheet music, old magazines, etc. that can be combined with greenery and simple items like paper chains, beads, and old plastic Santa and reindeer to make great nostalgic displays, as he shows in his own home.

Whether you wish to also begin a vintage Christmas collection or you just want to bask in the happy comfort of nostalgia, this volume should satisfy—you may not want to come back to January.

15 Old Fashioned Christmas Craft Ideas

Boxing Day Blues and Greens

It was 61°F when we went to bed. Even with both fans in the window, we both slept badly. James got up at seven to telework, but I hung on another hour, having been woken up being warm, again being itchy, again because my leg hurt—it became a litany. Woke up to find it grey, gloomy and grizzly. So I dressed, walked Tucker, ate a quick breakfast, and left James staring at his computer (he had no calls all day dealing with what he's supposed to support at all; any calls he took were from people who couldn't log onto their laptops).

I hadn't gone to Walgreens at all during Advent, and based on the leftovers there today, I needn't have wasted my time then or now. However, I had a 30 percent off total purchase for CVS, so that was my next destination. BreatheRights were on sale so I couldn't get them, but I stocked up on PeptoBismol, some disposable shower caps, wide headbands to use in the car with the window open, and a few other toiletries. Next it was over the railroad bridge and past the leftover Christmas trees to Bed, Bath & Beyond, but had to stop at Barnes & Noble first. I wanted to see if they had the clearance items out, but...nope. Just like CVS, they were still in the process of marking them down. So I used the bathroom and skedaddled.

James had asked me to get him a 10" saute pan at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I picked that up (it turns out what he needed was a 8" saute pan, so now I need to swap it), plus a fold-up stepstool for the laundry room, and a gadget to scrub out the shower. Even when I kneel down I cannot reach the back of the shower compartment. This thing has an extension pole on it and has a rotating scrubber. I hope it will cut down the pain to my back. I found one of those "star shower" things (the brand that's red, green, and blue) half price and got one for James, and also some balsam and cedar Yankee candle tea lights.

Next I stopped at Costco, as we were out of both milk and Skinny Pop. I bought something for us to take to Bill and Caran's annual New Year's Eve bash, and picked up the "Time" salute to John Glenn as well.

My last stop was Michael's, where I indeed did pick up two Christmas clearance items, but mainly grabbed a few small things to use a 30 percent off total purchase coupon which is only good today. I am looking for a container for my drawing pencils, but everything is too big! I want something the size of a pencil case, and it's all huge.

Got home just in time to dodge the rain and have lunch with James (leftover shells with pork from Friday's supper) and then sat down to watch some Christmas things, starting with The Little Match Girl. The only resemblance to the Andersen story is that there's a little girl selling matches; in this go-round she's an angel in disguise, trying to help a fragmented family in a 1920s era Philadelphia-clone city. Keshia Knight Pulliam plays Molly the angel with a sweet combination of innocence and roguish knowledge, and William Daniels is perfectly stuffy as the wealthy businessman who doesn't realize he's being played by a crooked police chief.

The rest of the afternoon was reserved for assorted unusual Christmas specials I've recorded over the years: first The Greatest Tree on Earth, a fascinating British program about the history and traditions of the Christmas tree, following a Tokyo family, a Lappish family, and a Brooklyn family with their Christmas prep, intercut with historical insights and the workings of a Christmas tree farm. The most bizarre segment showed German propaganda films from World War II, made to convince the population that everything was fine. There was a huge tree hung with Hitler ornaments and glass acorns with swastikas on them, topped with a star, under a big swastika. Talk about unsettling! Then Christmas and the Civil War. Using re-enactments, it showed how Christmas went from a small religious holiday to a national celebration, following the lives of Thomas Nast, Louisa May Alcott, a plantation owner's wife, and a slave who was originally a Christmas gift to his master's wife. Next Christmas Lights, simple  footage shot in different places, no narrative, just some background music: the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, a writer's cabin in Alaska being decorated with lights and ornaments with a bonfire held outside afterwards, Washington DC and the display around the National Christmas tree and other public buildings, the coast of Maine where children and adults decorated a tree with lights and goodies like apples, popcorn, corn, seed-covered peanut butter pinecones, and even herring for the local wild animals, and finally the streets and decorations and then the Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg. Dreamy, lyrical and simply beautiful.

Finally there was another re-enactment special, The Christmas Truce, that included an appearance by the daughter of Bruce Bairnsfather, a famous cartoonist who served in World War II.

We had Italian wedding soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper, watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, and now I'm on the Christmas specials I still have stacked up on the DVR: two Merv Griffin Show segments to start with. One was in black and white when Arthur Treacher was still Merv's sidekick: he was dressed up as Santa Claus and sang two songs. The other was a color episode which featured William Shatner —all excited about a project he was working on with inner city kids—and Mel Torme, who sang "The Christmas Song," of course, and did an acappella duet with Merv of Christmas songs. Smashing!

(Guess what! What James wanted was an 8" saute pan. He said ten. So back we will have to go to BB&B.)

Two Days of Christmas

Had a busy Christmas weekend, starting yesterday when we were expecting company: James' mom and sister were coming up for a Christmas dinner. I believe this is the first time they have been up since we had Thanksgiving dinner in 2006. James was up early to put our little turkey, all nine pounds of it, into the oven. He tried it Alton Brown's way: brown it for a half hour at 500°F, and then lower it to 325 and let it cook until it was done. In the meantime he made a gravy with the neck and giblets, and stuffing. (This gravy came out thick and rich and wonderful. Like Aunt Meg's gravy in Twister, it was a food group all its own, especially since James put pureed vegetables in it.) I finished cleaning up and made room for folks to sit down and primped the bathroom a little, and even went downstairs and put the new tags on our license plates and our new registrations on the sun visors. The turkey was done at noon and we had a chance to relax—and nibble on it a little, of course!—before Mom and Candy arrived.

We had an informal lunch around the coffee table, with Mom bagging a tray table. The turkey came out well except that one side was a bit underdone, another sign that the oven is not working properly. The stuffing was soft and flavorful. Mom and Candy had brought scalloped potatoes, green beans, corn casserole, and a grape salad. There was Christmas music on in the background and the tree lights were all on. After lunch we exchanged gifts. James got a nifty airplane clock and an airplane wine bottle holder and some sangria. I got a bunch of bird related things, including a rustic frame, a big stand-up sparrow in a Santa hat, and another little bird. We have been giving them a different type of food basket every year: once it was Italian, once it was soup, etc. This year it was a "garnish" basket, things to spice up meals: salad fixings, finishing sauce, Asian noodles, ice cream topping, garlic dip mix to go into butter to make garlic bread, sprinkles for ice cream and cake, etc. We also gave Candy an Eeyore mug and a Cowboys Beanie Baby for her birthday two weeks ago, and Mom a Robert Ludlum novel.

They headed out before it got dark. We gave them the rest of the white meat and kept the dark; James put the drumsticks in the freezer, but as the shadows lengthened, we had a light dinner of the rest of the leavings: I just put hunks of turkey meat and some gravy on two Kings Hawaiian rolls and ate those; James made a little plate with stuffing. Then we hurried out to go look at Christmas lights; we've been going so "late" (like 8 p.m.) that people already have turned them off! This is absolutely flabbergasting to me because we always keep our Christmas lights on all night: Mom said it would help the Holy Family find our house. (I also keep ours on New Year's Eve and at Twelfth Night.)

The light situation was a bit iffy. I didn't want to go far from home because James was feeling a bit off, so we just stayed around the neighborhood. Not a whole lot of festive folks around. Not sure if it's the political climate, the economy, or if people just aren't celebrating. I do notice, though, that a lot of the newer homes have their living rooms at the rear of the house, so you see fewer big Christmas trees in front windows. We did have some luck going up toward downtown Smyrna; while the Park development seemed to have several fewer decorations than last year, two new plats were well dressed. We saw swooping stars, large decorations that looked like giant illuminated bulbs, classic decorations (white candles, green wreaths, red bows), those new "star shower" things, lights outlining windows, lights along paths. Also checked out the Craftsman-style homes on King Springs Drive. I would love to have one of those. (Yeah, I know. House envy. But it's more because they tickle all the nostalgic bones in my body.) However, we didn't go to Dunleith to see if they did luminaria this year, or to see of the big house on Cunningham Drive had turned into what we call "the wedding cake house," it is so draped in lights.

Finally, back home, I took Tucker out, and then we settled down and watched The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. Once that finished, we put on the news and then watched Midnight Mass from the Vatican. This year NBC did not cut it off at 1 a.m., but showed the whole thing. And since we were up anyway, we opened presents. I had bought James a new Ott Light for his model work, and four books (one about the Berlin airlift, another about World War II films, the new book about Pearl Harbor defending Admiral Kimmel, and a book about the World War II Memorial). He bought me War of the Roosevelts, a nifty metal barrette, a "thesaurus" t-shirt, a great Cumberbatch-as-Doctor Strange poster, and a Steiff budgie. (Yes, a Steiff budgie, blue with a white face. I knew they made more than bears, but not birds!)

Needless to say, we slept in on Christmas morning, and then James was up before me, having walked Tucker and made himself some breakfast. I made myself an eggnog to have with my oatmeal and yogurt, and spelled James making his special dessert, caramel sauce over oranges. He also made corn to take to the Butlers, and we brought the green beans and mushrooms left over from Christmas Eve dinner. I'd had Christmas music on earlier, but while the oranges were soaking in their sauce, I watched The House Without A Christmas Tree and then A Christmas Memory with Geraldine Page.

I also gave Tucker the second half of his Christmas gift. Last night I gave him his new plush blanket. I meant to bring it out from the spare room and surprise him in the living room, but I forgot to close the gate and he followed me in. I held up the blanket—he had chewed holes in his old one—and his eyes widened and he reared up on his hind legs and grabbed at it with his forelegs. When I did give it to him, he shook it like a rat and proceeded to growl and roughhouse with it until he finally got it in a lumpy pile and laid on it. This morning I gave him the fox. This is a non-stuffed toy because he eviscerates stuffed ones. He had the squeakers that are sewn at either end killed within an hour.

We headed to the Butlers about 2:30 and were still one of the first to arrive. As always, it was a wonderful time. There seemed to be a running gag today: someone would walk in and see A Christmas Story running on the television (first Charles, then Juanita, then Alex) and say, "You know, I've never seen this movie." Wow! Anyway, we snacked on Lin's piecrust pastries and apple and cheese and a relish tray until it was time for dinner, which was turkey, steak, pot roast and ham, with mashed potatoes, biscuits and butter, carrots, and our beans and corn. Later there were two pies and our oranges for dessert (they were lovely; I had three helpings). Once again, we did not see Sylvester the new kitten (who is now an adolescent cat), but we understand he's already fond of climbing the Christmas tree. They get him down by turning on the Death Star tree topper that Phyllis gave them. Later on we exchanged gifts. James got a nice warm throw and movie tickets, and I had two Doctor Who adult coloring books with pencils and a mug. We headed home around eight, full of food and friendship, and snuggled by the tree (as we couldn't very well snuggle by the fire, as it was 70 bloody degrees out; I'd walked in the door earlier and called "Happy Easter!") until bedtime.

"It's So Tinsel!"

Finally, it was time! I slept until 8:30, ate breakfast and walked the dog, and commenced to tree assembly and then decoration. Snowy played supervisor as I stacked the tiers of the tree and plugged each in, sighed in relief when each lighted, snaked an extension cord down the "trunk" of the tree so I could plug in the star, and then started to apply decorations, old in the back, large everywhere first, to be filled in with smaller ones. This year I did not put the Hallmark "twelve days of Christmas" ornaments on the tree. We have half of them now, and I bought the metal display tree a couple of years back. We have one more bird to go, the swans a'swimming, and then I will note with interest when we leave the birds and start with the humans. This set has made the number five not "rings" as in the kind you wear on your fingers but as ringneck pheasants; this is a theory about the song is that the "five golden rings" were golden ringneck pheasants, which were known as "rings" in the era the song was conceived. (It's not, as some people say, about the Bible. It's a song to be sung at a game, back from the days when that was part of the Christmas celebration, not watching football on TV or playing on your iPad.)

The tinsel, as always, took the longest. I always want to get that perfect waterfall effect, like ice flowing down the tree. It's made harder by the fine icicles that they make today. The version through the late 60s (when they replaced lead foil tinsel with the mylar stuff) through the 1990s was thick enough that I could remove it after Christmas and keep about three quarters of it. The new stuff is almost as fine as angel hair, and if you remember that awful stuff, you also remember how it was prone to static electricity. At least it was cold today! The temperature was down in the 20s this morning. Last year it was so warm when I decorated the tree that I had to wear a glove to hold the tinsel because it was sodden with perspiration from my hand.

Once the manger figures were under the tree, I was done! "It's so tinsel!" as Lanny and Wayne the Christmas elves would say. I changed clothes quickly and took four of the five packages we need to mail (one has a missing part) to the post office to get them off. Remarkably, this only took about fifteen minutes. I'm going to quit going to the PO when it opens!

I'd only eaten oatmeal, yogurt, a piece of bread and three glasses of milk all day, so Uncle Maddio's Pizza was a welcome supper! Then we went to Sprouts and then to Publix. We just need milk and eggs and "plastic cheese"—which we can get at Costco tomorrow.

So nice to blog by the glow of the tree...

Second Sunday of Advent

We stopped by Big Lots after completing our errands at Costco and some "us" time at Barnes & Noble. A year or two ago, the lights on the little pre-lighted silver tree we used for James' airplane tree died. We used it that year sans lights, and James bought a blue tree the year after, but it was not pre-lighted. We tried a candle, but there was no way to light up that tree and it sat sad in the dark unless the hall light was on. I'd been searching rather haphazardly for a new tree; really, a three-foot tree would have been perfect, but apparently they don't make three-foot trees anymore. So I changed my search to 4-foot. It's amazing how much some sites wanted for a 4-foot tree, but of course some of them came in big planters. Guys, just want a silver, pre-lighted Christmas tree.

Lowes, Home Depot, Michaels had only green trees. I guess I could have gone looking at Walmart, but...Walmart...before Christmas...oh, dear. That's suitable only for emergencies, and I couldn't find any small silver trees on their website anyway. So Big Lots was the only place I could find a 4-foot silver tree with white lights that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Once I decanted it, I knew why it was cheap, too. I've seen twister seals with more tensile strength than the branches of this tree; if you can't hold a plastic Hallmark airplane without drooping, what's the chance it will hold a glass ornament? Poor thing was as "homely as two toads," as Aunt Emily used to say to Lucinda in Roller Skates, when I took it from the box. I've perked it up a bit, but it took a lot of fluffing, plus I had to bend some of the branches up to offset the weight of the ornaments. The stand is so wide and the stand downstairs so narrow that only two of the three feet are actually on the top; I had to shim the third leg. In the end, it came out looking okay, and I could finally use the red, green, and gold garland I bought for it originally, with the red and the green corresponding to landing lights.

Earlier in the afternoon we watched Maryellen 1955: Extraordinary Christmas based on the Maryellen series of "American Girl" books. Maryellen's adventures were released just recently and she was not one of my favorites; she's just too frivolous for me, and her little sister the ballerina is freaking annoying. I like her bookworm sister the best. Surprisingly, the film pulled the storyline together much better. Instead of Maryellen painting the front door red to welcome her mom's old war plant workers, in the television story she chiefly does it for the handicapped son of one of her mother's friends from the war plant. Instead of her going to her grandparents' for Christmas and being lonesome and disillusioned, she gives up the trip for a better reason. Plus Maryellen in the film is talented in drawing. Beverly the little dancing pest was heard from little and they gave Maryellen's dad something to do other than just be a name in the book. She was played by the same little girl who played Dolly Parton in the recent film Christmas of Many Colors (and its predecessor, Coat of Many Colors), which I found rather lightweight and unbelievable, despite the great cast; the script was just too didactic and childish. In fact this Maryellen episode was much better than that Parton film, although Alyvia Alyn Lind was perfect as young Dolly.

(Supposedly this is the first in a series of Maryellen stories on Amazon Video. Will be interested in seeing the rest. If you have Amazon Prime I recommend this.)
In the meantime, some videos to enjoy:

Probably my favorite episode of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir TV series: "The Ghost of Christmas Past"

Another "GAMM" favorite, although not Christmas: "The Medicine Ball"

Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory

Trim Up The Tree...

...but not quite yet!

As I'd reported in my main blog, on the first Sunday of Advent I managed to get the Christmas candles up in the front window, the door wreaths up, and the wreath, little blue tree, the Santas in the chairs, and the Father Christmas flag up on the porch, and draped the net lights over the bushes out front. The other lights would have to wait. I had taken Monday and Tuesday off, and this helped greatly. I spent Monday morning divesting Thanksgiving and dusting off things, and putting out the Christmas stakes (reindeer, candy cane, and jingle bell) outside and the mailbox cover. Plus Woody and Holly, the log reindeer. I'd planned to have the foyer all decorated when James got home, but the string of lights on the mini-ornament tree failed and I wasn't going out during rush hour. Instead I toted all the boxes that needed to come upstairs upstairs (I even managed to get the village upstairs; it's not heavy, just awkward.)

Tuesday morning I had to run to Michaels. All they had were LED strings in sets of fifty. I used them, but the tree now looks garish. Sigh. The kids today will grow up thinking LEDs are normal and pretty, but they will never know how soft and sweetly lovely incandescent lights were, comforting and gentle rather than garish. Anyway, I was able to finish up the foyer, and then I put up the library tree and the decorations dotting the library shelves and the couple of things in the downstairs bath.

Wednesday I had to go back into work; got my telework training done for another year and sent a file on for approval. Unfortunately I think the chicken salad in my sandwich was starting to spoil. I got very queasy after lunch and finally came home. I logged on to work via my computer in case something needed immediate attention, but it was all quiet and I swigged some Pepto Bismol and finally had a short nap. James was late so I roused up and busied myself putting greenery in the china cabinet and cleaning off things in prep for decorations.

Thursday was a telework day, but I got a bunch done during lunch and after work: put up the ceppo on the china cabinet, the feather tree with the vintage ornaments and the gilded walnuts I made as a teenager (so I guess they're now vintage, too!), and finally the table, which had to be cleaned off first (I swear, horizontal surfaces in this house gather so much junk). I did everything but the "1910 tree" because there wasn't time, but did get to the gingerbread and candy cane decorations in the kitchen. This was all possible because James came home late because he was picking up his new glasses. They are pewter colored and look super with his beard. I even had the Christmas village up on the mantelpiece before he walked in the door.

Friday morning the decorating continued—the "1910 tree" becoming the centerpiece on the table, the Rudolph tree going up in the hall. I had to dust and polish my entire bureau before I could put the little Italian and Scottish decorations up our bedroom. I absolutely don't understand how the bedroom gets so dusty. I could probably leave the spare room without dusting for a year and it wouldn't accumulate as much as it does in our bedroom in a week.

All I had left was the woodland tree, but it was time for me to get dressed and head to the Apple Annie Craft Show at the Catholic Church of St. Ann off Roswell Road. I don't even know anymore how many years I have been going to this event. I like this church; it's a pity it's such a long drive away. There were a lot of jewelry vendors this year. I stopped to talk to the first one, who was a man who made his own links (jump rings) out of wire and then he makes chain-mail bracelets from them. If "chain mail" sounds big and awkward, these weren't; they were fine and beautiful. He does the chain work and his wife the beadwork. I felt old; I mentioned Trifari to him and he had never heard of it. ☹  It was such a part of my life growing up that it's hard to believe that no one remembers any longer except for some jewelry collectors.

Well, I had two surprises, one sad and one good. The sad one was that they are remodeling the meditation garden, so I couldn't have my usual peaceful visit. I was a bit unhappy at first, because they have torn out all the plants and the pond and the statues and they're putting in granite. But it turns out that they are building a columbarium, a place to inter ashes, like the place at the Church of All Saints where Amy Rutledge is, and a prayer garden. It was supposed to be done by Christmas. I know when it is done it will be very nice but I was sorry that the rustic look of it is going away.

The happy surprise is that I ran into Claudia Barbour. We chatted a few minutes and I invited her to the Twelfth Night party.

Most of the things I would have liked to buy were very expensive: solid wood lazy Susans with beautiful blocky designs, natural wood "no electric" speakers (I actually would have bought one of these but we had nowhere to display them properly) with beautiful geometric decorations, solid wood crosses hand-carved. Not a lot of cute clothing for grandchildren this year, either.

Did stop in the sanctuary to say some prayers before I left. I always pray for James and Tucker and Snowy to be healthy and for me to be a better person, but mostly I prayed for all this political hatred to end. Reading Facebook has become a chore and the vitrol from both sides is frightening.

I stopped at Michaels on the way home to get some Sharpie markers, Trader Joe's to stock up on Christmas goodies, and finally at Kaiser at Town Center to pick up my levothroid. I was thirsty and feeling a bit cranky, but then the phone rang in the purse of the lady ahead of me, playing the Boston Pops' "Sleigh Ride." It cheered me up no end.

I got the woodland tree up tonight before settling in to watch Christmas specials tonight: John Denver and the Muppets, A Muppet Family Christmas, "Santa Claustrophobia" from Hill Street Blues, and Christmas Past.

 
Christmas on the American Frontier 1800-1900, John E. Baur
I got this at the library book sale, having taken it out at least once. Taken directly from diaries, journals, and histories by the people who lived the experience, chapters address different aspects of the American pioneer experience, starting from the founding of the country and the customs brought from Great Britain, France, and Spain and introduced to the native inhabitants, some who took great enjoyment from the holiday, but sadly, mainly due to alcohol. Some inspiring stories tell about settlers, cattlemen, explorers, and trappers making the best of what they had and sharing what little they had with others, or riotous dances at distant ranches, but more often the tales are bleak: people lost in blizzards just feet from the homes they were heading for, groups on short rations enduring another hungry day, cowboys spending the day tending cattle and wishing for some camaraderie, rough-and-tumble miners breaking from hardscrabble life for one day, and even British immigrants learning to endure the wild Western weather. Other customs are learned as Spanish customs like farolitoes and La Posadas catch the eye of visitors.

This book is from 1961 so the text may not be as softened as it might be at the present time, but the main draw here are the actual words of the pioneers. Coloring-book type illustrations break up the text. Slightly dry, but with some surprises (for instance, the word "hop" as a synonym for a dance; it sounds like a 1950s term, but goes back at least one hundred years earlier).

The 2014 Hallmark Christmas Dream Book

I can hear Seigfried Farnon talking about the carol singers in the All Creatures Great and Small episode "Merry Gentlemen," remarking that they come earlier every year and soon they'll be coming before they turn back the clocks! Here it is barely spring and the Hallmark ornament "Dream Book" is already out.

Check it out here.

Looking for Christmas

It's been a rather sobering Advent this year with the death of Juanita's mom and then Willow getting sick. Every day has become an emotional struggle, and I woke up this morning feeling very down. But there were things to do.

After breakfast I dressed so I could finally take Nicki's gift to the post office to mail. I've had to delay mailing it because I had not finished a little something I wanted to include in the package. I had finished that last night and wrapped and addressed the parcel. I also got an airmail stamp to send what will be a very belated Christmas card. I wanted to bake cookies when I got back, and I didn't think we had enough flour or sugar, so I stopped at Food Depot to pick them up, then "fed" the car.

On my way home I thought I'd stop by Lowes to see if they had any more solar lights. The direct route was through the "Covered Bridge" neighborhood which includes a 19th century mill site and, of course, the titular covered bridge. The bridge has to have an I-beam barrier on each approach because, despite numerous signs saying that the clearance for the bridge is only seven feet high, big delivery trucks continue to drive up to and smash into the I-beam. Sure enough, as I was exiting the bridge, here came another idiot truck driver without the sense God gave a goat, heading for the bridge.

Anyway, the solar lights were all gone; oh, well. I was in a pretty morose mood at the time and looked wistfully at the abandoned Borders store across the parking lot, wishing I could just walk through those doors and back in time. The weather wasn't helping; it was overcast and getting warmer by the minute. Tomorrow, the day of the winter solstice, it's supposed to be a horrible 70°F. Ugh.

When I got home I remembered James saying he didn't feel like putting up any more Christmas lights, but I suggested we might want to just put up the Moravian star. I wanted to do something to cheer him up, and we all need a star to see by, so I dragged out the ladder—this was the hardest part because I am acrophobic and can't go over the second step—and hung up the star, plugged it into the extension cords, and set up the timer. I also stripped the old blue LED light set (tell me again how LED lights are long-lasting; every string of LED lights we've bought either have at least a dozen lights out, or half the string is out) off the little tree on the porch and put on another set, so when we came home tonight the Moravian star was softly glowing blue and the tree was doing the electric blue slide. (The poor solar lights, though, were looking very puny due to the cloud cover all day.) I also put out the greens basket (which partially covers up the big timer and the extension cords), and hung the Christmas decorations on the porch railings. They should have gone up after we put up the lights, but then we didn't do lights.

Once in the house, I did a last-ditch effort to get the lights on the airplane tree to work. I replaced what looked like two burned-out bulbs (but there are at least two more) and tried to replace the fuse, but I couldn't get either out. Needless to say, it didn't work, and this is why I didn't start baking the wine biscuits until 2:30. Besides the fact that I had to dispose of what flour was already in the canister, the baking went flawlessly. I made two batches of wine biscuits which were almost done when James arrived home—by the time I changed clothes and printed out coupons, they were finished.

We had supper at Giovanni's, which tasted really good since I never did have lunch. I splurged and had lobster ravioli. We then braved the stores around Barrett Parkway to go to REI and finish a gift. I'm thinking this is the last one. I won't know until I start wrapping. Oy.

We also stopped at Barnes & Noble with 25 percent off coupons. James found a new Harry Turtledove novel and I bought a collection of Christmas mysteries. Also found a new "Best of British" and picked up a cross-stitch magazine.

Snowy's First Christmas Tree

I feel like I've been running for weeks with no letup. All of the Christmas decorations aren't up yet, and it was already time to put up the tree. The real tree, not the theme trees, which I enjoy, but the real Christmas tree, with all the ornaments we've bought together and the PharMor ornaments and the McCrory ornaments and the Woolworth star "Little Blaze," and waterfalls of tinsel, the one I love.

This year was a bit of a twist because half of a string of lights was out. However, I had two strings of the same number, if not the same type, of lights that I had bought a couple of years back at Hobby Lobby because I liked the way the covers were two-colored. They pretty much fit exactly into the bare space left by the errant light string, but it seemed like ages to set them in place and fluff the tree, which spends the rest of the year crammed into a corner of a closet. (It's not done it any good, either; it looks like we need a new one, as there is at least one bent branch.) I spent a bunch of time replacing faded blue bulbs on the strings still on the tree from the string I took off, as it appears the bulbs are still good, it's just half the string that's off.

I started at ten and finished just as James walked in the door sometime after five, having layered a waterfall of tinsel all over the tree and just placed each manger figure carefully in its place in the stable under the tree. About half these manger figures are probably older than I am, carefully bought one and two at the time from the bins of nativity figures in the basement store of W.T. Grant and perhaps Woolworth's and Newberry's. The sheepdog or the goat are the newest figures, and those were bought in the 1960s. The only figure not original to the set was a similar figure that fit with the set that I found in an antique shop in downtown Marietta.

Watched several Christmas things while putting up the tree—Christmas Is and The City That Forgot About Christmas (the two Lutheran Church specials with Benji and his sheepdog Waldo), and then all four Lassie Christmas stories with Timmy—and then put on Holiday Traditions on Dish. Tonight we ordered Chinese in and watched a bunch of Christmasy things: Charlie Brown Christmas, the Grinch, Twas the Night Before Christmas, A Very Merry Cricket, Mickey's Christmas Carol, and finally The Small One.

Taking a Break Since My Back is Breaking

Have put up the library tree this morning, and the decorations in the library. For a while it seemed insurmountable because there was so much clutter, which drives me mad. And the poor library tree is getting so limp, but I'm so reluctant to replace it. We've had it since we've had the house, you see, and I'm rather sentimental.

The only rule with the library tree is anything on it must have been in a book first. You can't put a St. Bernard on the tree and say it's Beethoven, because that was a movie first, even if it were novelized later. (You could put a St. Bernard on the tree and say it's the famous Barry, of the Great St. Bernard Hospice, because that was a book. I don't have a St. Bernard, though. I do have My Friend Flicka, Misty of Chincoteague, and My Dog Skip, among others.) Less than half of the ornaments were actually made as book related, and those are Hallmark ornaments: The Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild Things Are, Thomas the tank engine, etc. The rest are figures from Hobbytown or from Richard's Variety Store which represent books. A black horse is Black Beauty, a white baby seal is Kotick the white seal from The Jungle Book, a fawn is Bambi, a West Highland White terrier is McDuff, a one-legged pirate is Long John Silver. I have Merlin the magician and Robin Hood and Zorro and a girl with a horse brush who's supposed to be Dinah in The Horsemasters (or could be February Callendar, I suppose, rubbing down her pony Gorse), a rabbit that is Hazel from Watership Down and a fox which is Cinnabar the One O'Clock Fox, and even Elsa the lioness from Born Free.

Sometimes you have to "go with the flow." My Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the film Dorothy, with ruby slippers. The real Dorothy of the book had silver slippers. I have a sable-and-white collie for Lassie Come-Home, and really, that's how anyone today thinks of Lassie, but the seminal Lassie, the one created by Eric Knight, was a tricolor collie.

I did get the library tidier, put the Christmasy things on shelves, and put up the lighthouse. When we were at the old house, we didn't have room for a Christmas village, so I made a Christmas vignette, with a whole story behind it. I bought one of the LeMax lighthouses and then painted a big rectangular board to look like a lighthouse island with the sea around it. Bought a bag of pebbles to represent rocks at sea and on the jetties, bought some pilings with seagulls on them, and the "sea" has raised whitecaps made with dried glue ridges. The lighthouse is run by old Cap'n Andy, who in his day was a famous ship's captain. Now he keeps the light, with the help of his granddaughter Bess and his grandson Daniel, whose parents died in a typhoid epidemic. They've just come back from the mainland and Daniel is bringing in their little Christmas tree when they see someone in the dusk rowing out to the lighthouse. It is the family's old friend Edward Simpson, who is bringing the family some Christmas gifts in his dory. Cap'n Andy and Bess wait at the headland with a lantern to welcome Ed and invite him for a bite of supper.

Came upstairs to have a few peanut butter crackers. Everything was such a mess downstairs I soothed myself by tucking some Christmas "greens" into the china cabinet and then decorating the ceppo with its manger scene on the top and a woodland scene with St. Nicholas on the bottom. That made me feel good enough to go back downstairs and wrestle physically and psychologically with the containers, which got put back in the closet. Everything needs vacuuming, but it's a lot neater.

Sorted out the porch decorations from the divider decorations; took the latter upstairs on a box lid and installed the former where they belonged, so the porch looks a mite perkier, then had some milk and some chocolate and read a few pages of the November/December "Landlove," a British nature magazine.

[Later: Things didn't go as well this afternoon. Wanted to put up the airplane tree, which is a pre-lit unit. Plugged it in and it's dead. Worked perfectly for several years now, but no juice. Sighing, I went on to do the foyer tree which holds all our miniature ornaments. Guess what—the light string was dead! I don't understand. The string worked for a month, through January sixth, and was working fine when I took everything down. How it "breaks down" without being used flummoxes me. Anyway, I did want to finish decorating the foyer, so I tossed some clothes on. Stopped at Home Depot, but all they had were LEDs. I don't like their color and every string of LEDs we've bought now have at least half the lights off. So I went to Lowes and picked up a string of fifty lights.

I liked the set of thirty-five better, as it was made for single use. Now I've had to hide the plug that enables the string to be added to another light string. Modern Christmas lights are dreadful; it's so hard to fasten them to the tree. The old miniature strings had a ball you slid along the wire to clamp the light to the branch. The poor tree is all wires now. Nevertheless, it "cleaned up" pretty well, although it was a painful task. My hands get so dry from washing in the winter that the skin on the tips of my thumbs crack, and every time I put an ornament on the tree I was prickled with plastic needles or metal hooks. I hate leaving blood on a Christmas tree.

Done with that just in time for supper.]