SOLVING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD

This isn't us - but you get the idea!

I never know where or when a great essay topic will strike. I make sure to keep a journal and lighted pen next to my bed – “just in case”. Yet another inspiration for an essay came to me via The Writer’s Almanac.  Are you familiar with this website? Each day there is a poem and several little nutshell essays on notable birthdays and happenings for that date. There is also often a quote from the birthday boy or girl. The quote for January 20^th was from George Burns: "Too bad that all the people that know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair."

 

How true that is! I have to do an LOL here. I can picture myself and three gal pals – the Brit Chick, the Southern Chick, the Fat Chick (that would be me!) and our little Chiclet - doing our thing in the pool at six o’clock in the morning, water walking and talking, exercising our jaws as we solved the problems of the world.  If only they would listen to us!

 

Right? Of course right!  

DO YOU REMEMBER LAUGH-IN?

One recent Sunday the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate pointed us to pledge week on South Carolina ETV.  There it was, in all its glory: Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, presented as a pledge week special put together by the show’s former producer, George Schlatter.  Needless to say he picked out the very best bits, and the sketches and lines are still fresh and funny.

 

Laugh-In was produced in Beautiful Downtown Burbank from 1968 to 1973, and some of the bits seem prophetic: remember the one of then-President Nixon saying “Sock it to me?!”  Yeah, they did, didn’t they?  They joked about then California Governor Ronald Regan becoming President Regan.  In 1981 he did, didn’t he?  They joked around about all the troubles in the Middle East, and those same troubles are still there to this day, forty some-odd years later.

 

Sock it to Me?!



It was so neat to see original cast in all their glory, and to anticipate their lines:  “Is that another chicken joke?” -  “One ringy-dingy, a two ringy-dingies. And a gracious good morning to you sir.” - “Very interesting, but stupid!” -  “And that’s the truthhhhh.” - “How about a Walnetto?” - “Oh, I’ll drink to that!” -  “Huh?” (That was always Goldie Hawn).

 

 

In one sketch, the slyly suggestive Tyrone F. Horneigh sits down and pursues the saggy-stockinged spinster Gladys Ormphby to the edge of the park bench. He leers: “Do you believe in the hereafter?” “Of course!” she counters. “Then you know what I’m here after!” Whereupon she smashes him over the head with her chunky purse.

All of the material was very, very clever, and just squeaked by the censors. “Sometimes,” said Schlatter, “it went too fast for them to catch.” He said that the show was like one big out-take, full of double-entendres, and they had a blast doing it.  The TV comedy of that day was either sit-coms or variety show sketches.  Like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which started on the BBC around the same time, Laugh-In was “something completely different.” When the Pythons came to American TV the country was (almost) ready for them, having been won over by the zany antics of the Laugh-In crew.

Seeing all those personalities on the special, it was a walk down memory lane: John Wayne, Orson Welles, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Peter Sellers, George Raft, Jack Benny, Sonny & Cher, Kirk Douglas, the still-lovely Raquel Welch, Flip (“That’s Geraldine Jones, Honey!”) Wilson, Sammy (“Here come de Judge) Davis, Jr., Kate Smith, and Frank Sinatra.   Looking at the clothes was a hoot too. Bell bottom pants, leisure suits, miniskirts, Nehru jackets; do you think those will ever make a comeback?

 

Is this the party to whom I am speaking?

The show and many of its regulars were nominated for or won several Golden Globe and Emmy awards for television.  Many went on to other pursuits, winning Oscars, Tony’s, Golden Globes and other awards in the movies and on Broadway.  The NBC Peacock should be proud of them.

"And that's the Truuuthhhh!"

 

Uproarious! – “Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!”

 

                    

YOU WUZ BORN CHUNKY

This great story came in last week from my dear friend in Ontario:

 

Lee, Newfoundlanders get razzed a great deal in Canada. They’re wonderful folk, with an amazing dialect (one of the few left in Canada) and in general, a sunny outlook on life, but for some reason, they’re the butt of a truly astonishing number of jokes. Luckily, they seem to take it all in good fun. Here’s the latest:

---

Gotta luv them Newfies. They come up with the simplest, most practical – and logical - solutions. Maybe they should be running the country...

Each Friday night after work, sun, snow or rain, Jack, being a Newfie, would fire up his outdoor grill and cook a moose steak. But all of Jack's neighbours were Catholic. And since it was Lent, they were forbidden to eat meat on Friday. The delicious aroma from the grilled moose steaks was causing such a problem for the Catholic faithful that they finally talked to their priest.



The priest came to visit Jack, and suggested that he become a Catholic.

After several classes and much study, Jack attended Mass, and as the priest sprinkled holy water over him, he said: "You were born a Protestant and raised a Protestant, but now you are a Catholic."

 

Jack's neighbours were greatly relieved, until Friday night arrived, and the wonderful aroma of grilled moose filled the neighbourhood. The priest was called immediately by the neighbours; and he rushed to Jack's yard, clutching a rosary, entirely prepared to scold him. However, he stopped dead and simply watched in amazement.

 

There stood Jack, clutching a small bottle of holy water which he carefully sprinkled over the grilling meat and chanted, "You wuz born a moose, you wuz raised a moose, but now you is a codfish."

---

 

My reply to her: Sue, That is wonderful! Do you think I could get someone to come here and sprinkle me with champagne and say “you wuz born chunky, you wuz raised chunky, but now you is thin!” ???

 

I can dream, can’t I?

TWO SOUTHERNERS' BIRTHDAYS

 

I read in today’s Writer’s Almanac that today is the birth date of Edgar Allen Poe. The entry also included a bit of one of my and many people’s favorite poems, The Raven.  I also read there that it is the birth date of Robert E. Lee who was born two years later. Now that name stirred up a memory about which I’ve written here before.

 

 

When I was a little girl my Grandmother, who was born in West Virginia, told me that because my name was Lee that they would be pleased to meet me if I ever went to the southern states. Really, I’m just another carpetbagger come south for the milder climate and the lower cost of living, and happy to be here. As always, the name Robert E. Lee, even in this past Thursday’s New York Times crossword puzzle -54 down- brings that memory back again.  

 

Be that as it may, Happy Birthday Edgar A. and Robert E.

RACONTEUR

Our raconteur, Brian E.A. Vigers, wearing his "tres imperméable"
beret, and Frank in his new Norwegian sweater.
Note the "monocular"!

The dictionary defines ‘raconteur’ as ‘one who tells stories and anecdotes with skill and wit’. I’ve known one true raconteur in my lifetime, and this was a wonderful English gentleman, then eighty-one years old, from Surrey. My husband and I met him and his wife in 1981, as we waited on a quay in Bergen to board a steamer for an eleven-day cruise along the Norwegian coast. From the first story he told - of how they’d left their cruise tickets and vouchers at home - we knew we were in for a wonderful trip with them. There were few other English-speaking peoples on board that particular cruise, and we were a tiny little island surrounded, at least four to one, by Germans. 

When you are in a small group on a ship for all those days, you tend to find out much of what there is to know about your fellow travelers. Brian, our raconteur, proved to be one of those people you’d like to talk to for hours.

He could see out of only one eye, so he’d sawn a WWII pair of submariner’s binoculars in half, and used just the one piece to view the passing coastal scenery. He was happy to say that he had another one just like it at home.

He regaled us with wonderful stories during the trip, and later when we visited with him and his wife in England. The story we both remember best, one a lot more elaborate than I can recount here, was the one about his first trip to India. He told us how his host’s first order of business when he arrived there was to take him to see a doctor. The British, no matter where they are, do like to tipple, and he couldn’t have a drink without first having papers to show that he was a “certified inebriate”, and medically required to imbibe.



¿Que Pasa?

To me, the best comedians were true raconteurs. I am not at all familiar with the world of comedy today. In this world of too many choices there is no way I can know all that’s ‘out there’ in TV land. My favorites will always be those of yesteryear and the post-radio comedians world of variety television. With just a hand-full of stations to ‘surf’, and a handy TV Guide, we got to see and know all the shows and stars. I was not so much a fan of the slap-stick, clowning school of comedians like Red Skelton or Martin and Lewis. Yes, I might laugh, but there was something clever missing with their brand of humor. To me the best comedians were true raconteurs. I loved the story tellers: Shelly Berman (“Please Alka Seltzer, don’t fizz!”) or Bob Newhart and his Buttoned Down Mind, George Carlin, the hippie-dippie weatherman, and the gentle, wise, Bill Cosby.

Two of the well-known comedians of that TV era were “Lonesome” George Gobel, and the ever acerbic Don Rickles. I’ve got my own tale to recount about those two. Within the space of about a year I was taken to see shows in which each of them starred. I first saw Gobel at a dinner theater in Windsor, Ontario. I’d always liked his TV act, especially the stories about his wife Alice, and I looked forward to the show. I guess his TV act and his stage acts were poles apart, because the stuff that night was absolutely “wash your mouth out with soap” filthy. Not funny at all, and so disappointing.  

A while later I saw Don Rickles at the Westbury Theater on Long Island. Knowing of his razor-sharp wit and fast come-backs, I expected the unexpected, and I got it. His show was fast-paced and funny, and with just one slightly suggestive but clever line. He realized what he’d just said, and remembered who he’d seen in his audience: a man who had brought along a kid who looked to be about twelve years old. He turned to the guy – this was a theater in the round - and said: “You brought him, you explain it to him.” The audience howled with approval.

I’m delighted that the best bits from my favorite raconteurs are all out there on YouTube. When (when?) I get the time and the inclination they are all there for me to see again and again.

BEATING THE WINTER BLAHS

It's another dreary day here in the Carolinas (dreich, as Tania Kindersley would say in her wonderful blog Backwards in High Heels) To say our weather has been a bit strange for January is putting it mildly because mild it has been. This morning it was 62. On Saturday and Sunday the highs were 80 and 79, according to our electronic outdoor thermometer that keeps track of such things.  Those are weird temperatures for January here, and the winter blahs are running rampant.

This morning though I saw a ray of sunshine, so to speak. Alexandra in her blog Ropcorn, reports that today is Tulipanens Dag - Tulip Day - in Sweden.  She says it's a new tradition that welcomes spring. I'd think that spring was over two months away up there, but I'm sure they're eager to embrace whatever helps chase away the winter blues.  I can think of nothing cheerier than a great bunch of tulips, can you?

MY GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

 

 

        Well, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write “the Great American Novel.” There are so many already, and I think I’ve read most of them. There’s my problem: I love to read.  What with life and everything that goes with it, the saying “so many books, so little time” certainly applies to me.  My husband’s always commenting: “never mind reading, write one!”  Yeah, sure!   

 

No, not this one. I'm not too sure, never having read it,
how great it might be.



       I must admit that on certain sleepless nights I have thought about writing something longer than one of these essays, but by the time I really got into the story I was asleep, and by the time I woke up the whole thing was forgotten.  Now I keep a pad and lighted pen (a great invention!) right by the bed.  Unfortunately for the world, it’s too late to retrieve my magnum opus from the depths of dreamland.  A few words jotted down fairly legibly are enough to fuel an essay, but would never be enough to start a fire under a novel.  However, the other night I had an idea: a generic starter for several novels: “Grandma grounded you, did she?”

       Or was it Grandpa, or Dad who did?  Who is speaking?  Mom, a brother, Auntie Em? Who is being spoken to? An eighteen-year-old, an eight-year-old?  Where are they?  What time of day? What season?  Above all, what was done wrong?  What are the consequences?  The permutations of the situation are endless.

      I’m guessing that that is how many of these modern churners-out-of-novels do it: they use a formula.  Never mind the old “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” shtick.  Too easy.  They must be using something like my basic generic starter, playing around with the characters and circumstances, and they’re getting rich doing it.  Egad!  There must be starters for everything from modern romances to horror tales to spy novels.

 

     C.S. Forester wrote:"A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted.” Years ago the lesson was “write what you know.” I think I could have happily learned to write what I knew while traveling the world. If I’d wanted to send the characters to Hong Kong or Stockholm, I’d just have had to check it out first.  Couldn’t have the characters wandering down streets that aren’t there or eating in restaurants that don’t exist, could I?  All that lovely travel would all be in the name of research, and today it would be tax deductible. Just think of the sight-seeing tours, the dining out, the shopping. Oh, the possibilities! 

    I’ve gleaned a few essays from my travels, but not the great novel. Frankly, I wasn’t even thinking about a novel when I was traveling. I realize I’ve always been destined to be a reader. What would authors do without folks like me?

 

 

 

P.S. Feel free to use my generic starter.

One never knows what you might write!

 

 

JANUARY EIGHTH

The new year is eight days old, and I am delighted to say that the glut of inane emails seems to have stopped now that everyone is back to what passes for normal life.  I never get too many emails in my "friends and family" account on any given day – some days there are none – but during the busy December holidays it seemed like many of the folks I know were passing on whatever drivel came into their own inboxes.  Didn’t they have better things to do?  I felt as though I’d soon be drowning in emails about cute animals, cute kiddies, Christmas ditties, prayers or letters that have to be passed on to twenty-three others within three days or my teeth will fall out, and jocular advice for the elderly. I’ll always pass on that last type: I’m elderly and it’s usually no joke. And chain emails? - Delete, Delete, Delete – that’s my motto.

I’ve always wondered who is taking the time to amass all the pictures, sayings, jokes, and such that go into one of these emails.  I know for certain that it isn’t the folks sending them to me in particular.  I have this vision of some guy sitting in his cubicle at his desk, supposedly doing his regular job, but cheating on the boss by making up useless emails.  I also have visions of the space wasted on saving this trash among all the employee emails in many company data banks.  Back in the seventies I was the boss of a small bank’s bookkeeping and computer department.  I was strict enough about personal phone calls - I’d have had a conniption if I’d caught one of the staff wasting the bank’s time on creating and sending, or even reading and sending on such stuff as these trashy emails.  Being the boss today would probably drive me bonkers.

 

                 “And I am unanimous in this!”

I KNEW A GAL ONCE...

I am sometimes very glad that we’ve not got the power to read each other’s minds.  Surely I wouldn’t be thinking this way if we did have the power, but there are so many times that I want to shout at people, tell them off, tell them what I think of their conduct or attitudes.  Not nice, not nice, I know. 

I am invariably polite.  You’ll rarely hear me say, for instance “I like that dress,” or “I like that haircut.”  What I’ll say will be something like “What a dress!” or “That haircut is you!”  There’s a subtle difference there, and there’s no point in antagonizing some poor being who’s probably trying her best.  I do try my own best, and it may not suit everyone else.

There’s a lovely saying, attributed to Elsie de Wolfe: “Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.”  Sometimes I’ve had to be gracious until my teeth hurt!

I knew a gal once, a friend of a friend, and she and I got talking about people we have no use for.  She said she wished she had a magic finger that she could point, just like a kid uses his forefinger and points it like a gun, and just cock the thumb trigger, and ‘poof’, they’d be gone. I’ve been mulling over the idea ever since we had that conversation. I suppose it’s good we don’t have this ability.  It’s a simplistic solution - and just think of the possible ramifications - but don’t you too sometimes wish you had a magic finger like that? (other than that finger?) 
But then, I wonder who might use that magic finger on me?  I’d better watch my p’s and q’s.

 

EVENING GOWNS, THE NUNS, AND MY MOM

December 28^th and the New Year is nigh. This story came to mind in light of the date –

VINTAGE YSL

After one of my piano lessons, eons ago in the early 50’s, I listened to my Mom and my piano teacher, one of the nuns at my school, talk about evening gowns. Even as I listened I thought it fascinating, and when I was older I came to realize that those gals, those nuns, were savvy creatures. They were devout but not ‘holy, holy’, and they were a bunch of women who had to get along together. They were also a bunch of women with wide interests outside of the classroom.  Wearing the same medieval habit every day was equalizing, and it gave them a keen appreciation for fashion. One of their favorite days of the year was New Year’s Eve. In the early to middle part of the last century there was always a “midnight” mass,  the exact timing of which I wish I knew: right on the strike of twelve mass-goers would have missed the kissing and the Auld Lang Syne. On New Year’s Eve, Sister was telling my Mom, the nuns made sure to be at mass to see all the evening gowns – sort of like an Easter Parade, but with gorgeous gowns and furs – and they would be the topic of convent conversation for days to come.



A simple, slinky Ralph Lauren number

I remember a gown my Mom made in my senior year. It was a strapless floor length white satin “underdress”. I could wear it alone, with or without the various colored hooked-in straps and sashes, and the stoles she made in both red and purple velvet. I could wear the gown with the sheer lavender voile overdress, trimmed in purple velvet. That dress was my senior prom dress. Sleeveless with sort of an over top like a bolero – trimmed in the purple. (I just spent about a half an hour looking for the ad from 1959-60 – I think it was from Modess sanitary napkins… “Modess because” – and saw a lot of great, nostalgic ads, but not the dress!) Anyway, the underdress could also be basted up and then she made an overdress of white voile curtain fabric, the edges were embroidered in a flowery, scalloped edge. So I could wear the underdress hemmed – or! she pulled the whole thing up into a gathered rose she basted in, and I could wear it with the velvet sashes and with or without straps she snapped in. My sister wore the underdress that year with the red velvet for her junior prom and to several occasions in her senior year too. I don’t think either of us ever wore it the same way twice. Oooo, and I don’t have even one picture of either of us in the dress in any of its various permutations. I tell you, my mother was on a roll that year. Well, she was on a roll every year – you can read about more of her sewing in my post A Material Thing.

Love that gown! And, of course, you know that's a young Ted Danson backed up
against that refrigerator. I've had this ad for eons in my special scrapbook.
And the Aramis was the one worn by a then special "beau" of mine.
Oh, the memories!

After finishing my blog on The Coat of Many Colors, I got to thinking about all the fabulous gowns I’d seen and loved over the years.  I do love evening gowns. I’ve never had much occasion to wear them once I was past my prom years, but I’ve always had an eye for the elegant ones. Over the years I subscribed to Vogue I pulled out several pages of gowns I’d love to have had. I still have several pasted in my own special scrapbook, ready to be scanned in for this posting. I look at them today and to my way of thinking they’re still in style.

Another page from my special scrap book -
This black silk brocade number is by Sophie.

If you have oodles of time you can get your fill of gorgeous creations from decades of designing just by googling ‘evening gowns’, or something like ‘red evening gowns’ under Google Images.  Be ready to sit a spell.

RADIO CITY MEMORIES

Radio City Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932

Every year when I was a kid, in the last few days before Christmas, my Mother would dress us up warmly and we’d take the subway into New York City. First we’d go get my Dad. It was always a treat to go into G. Schirmer’s on 43^rd Street, especially to see all the musical instruments on display in the store. That’s where I first saw a French horn, my favorite instrument. Dad was Schirmer’s Music Librarian, their cataloger and collector, and the man to go to if you were, for example, putting on a revue, or writing a book about music or musicians. He had some very interesting stories of famous people like Albert Schweitzer coming into the store.  Dad’s office was off the high gallery that ran around above the sales floor, and it was wonderful to look down there and ‘spy’ on everything.

We’d walk up Fifth Avenue to Rockefeller Center and have a wondering look at all the lights and the big Christmas tree and the skaters on the rink.  Somewhere in there we must have had dinner – probably at one of the Child’s restaurants I remember - and then we’d go see the movie and, best of all, the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall.  Or was “best of all” going up and down the grand staircase, or marveling at the acres of carpeting, or the huge, lush ladies rooms, or the Rockettes, or hearing the “Mighty Wurlitzer”? My Dad, also an organist, liked that.

As a kid I was impressed with the enormity of the theater. Years later in the Eighties, after the theater was renovated, I had a little more knowledge and appreciation of what I was seeing. I was still impressed by the size of the place, and best of all, all the things on my “best of all” list were still wonderful.   

 Merry Christmas and Zen Hugs to all my readers (you know who you are!)

December 21, 2012 – APOCOLLAPSE



From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day - today
 

I’m starting this essay on August 18^th. Wired of August 17 gave me the idea for the title of this essay and the nudge to think about what I think about so-called apocalyptic events like these.  Well, there it is: without further thought I used the descriptive words “so-called”. Deep thought or no thought, it indicates I’m not at all worried that the day of doom will arrive.

It’s like ghosts – I’d rather believe in them and find out I was wrong, than not believe in them and find out I was wrong. Know what I mean? I’d rather believe that our world will go on for eons and live as I do now, than begin planning for an end that, if it comes, will be the end: no matter of prep will have helped.

 

Update – November 4, 2012 –Flood and Fire in Breezy Point – here’s how our niece described it:

 

To all, Thx for all of your messages of concern. We are all ok. Our house is standing because of our neighbor's ugly cement fortress wall surrounding their house. When the ocean came roaring up, the wall veered the water to either side. Our house was protected just enough not to receive the brunt of the waves. Billy and Will stayed in the house to ride out the storm and that was a major mistake in hindsight. It was a harrowing experience for both and they are traumatized from the experience. They said fire balls were flying through the wind and landing on random houses setting them ablaze. The sky was bright orange throughout the night. That being said, we are only 1 of only about 20 houses not destroyed by fire or flooding. All of my close friends lost their houses and everyone must find a place to live. We are blessed in that regard as well. My brother has an unsold apt at 302-96th in Bklyn (in the same building as my sister and dad.) We have 3 air beds and a coffee pot. A lot of Breezy people are staying in Bay Ridge so we meet people we know every day on the avenue. The bars are packed with Breezy refugees. (is anyone surprised at that fact???) And so......we are alive, my friends are all alive and what can we do but carry on. Thx again for your e-mails and I would love your continued support in the weeks ahead. Go Giants!! Love ya, Janet

 

This all just mind boggling. I can’t begin to wrap my mind around losing everything. Talk about the Apocalypse! I guess many of the folks hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy must think that it came earlier than predicted: December 21 is the wrong date, too late. Talk about acting and re-acting – I can’t begin to think of such a scenario. I’ve heard about tsunamis and landslides and earthquakes all over the world. I’ve heard the news about devastating forest fires that claim dozens of houses, I heard about, and later saw, the devastation on the Gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina, but this, as it would do because I lived in the same area, hits me very close to home. All I can say is “Whew!” My PC home page is the New York Times: their daily pictures and updates from the nearby states - millions still without power, public transportation a laugh, guarding against looters - are an eyeful.

 

 

December 20, 2012 - So the Mayans ended their Long Count calendar on tomorrow’s date.  Clever of them!  They turned to each other and said “Well that job’s done forever. In 2012 we’ll just reuse this” - or words to that effect.  They planned to just roll it around again and start at the beginning.

Also: I don’t believe it disastrous that the sun will align with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years.  Where’d they get that number?  I’m no astrophysicist, but I get a mental picture of our spinning galaxy, and I compare our sun system to a yoyo whirling around on the end of a string: the sun is always in line, on that string, to the center of our galaxy.

I know that a lot of folks out there, even whole cities, are stockpiling food and have built underground shelters.  Didn’t they do that back at the turn of the last millennium?  Nothing much happened then except for a few minor computer glitches.  The scenarios are many and varied. But it seems they’re all preparing for “The End”.  If it is “The End” then that will be that: they – and I – won’t need food; shelter will be no shelter. We won’t know the difference because we won’t be.  I’m posting this a day early – just in case!

 

December 21, 2012  - Well, I was so not worried that I forgot to post this yesterday.  I got to thinking: do you remember the old Kingston Trio ditty called The Merry Minuet: “They’re rioting in Africa, they’re starving in Spain…” ?   Well, change the lyrics just a wee bit and the world, with the addition of countless electronic gadgets, is just the way it was in the late fifties and early sixties. I don’t think things will ever settle down much – much as we can hope it will.

One last thought, tongue in cheek: my “perpetual” calendar – just like this one -
ends with 2035. Should I be worried?



Why the JOY, JOY, JOY

A few of you wanted to know what I was covering with the JOY, JOY, JOY behind my dowel Christmas tree.  This is a "before" picture:

 

The picture is a French harbor scene and the boat has orange sails. In years past this orange background behind the tree has bugged me, so this year I printed up the letters in huge print, one to a page, double-stick taped them together and stuck the whole thing to the picture glass. 

Voila! Goodbye orange sails!  The side pictures didn't bug me at all -

they're rather neutral in effect. 

Much better!

 

 

 

And yes, I made the creche figures: in plaster of Paris when I was 10!...

 

 

...and about ten years ago I made the angels from yarn cones,

 felt, and wooden balls and such...



 

 

...and I made the trees with fake ivy leaves, grosgrain ribbon,

and tons of straight pins on Styrofoam cones. 

 

 

So that's the story - I'm glad you asked!

 

 

                                     

NOT YOUR AVERAGE CHRISTMAS TREE

It’s all over but the baking. The cookies and the Norwegian Yule Kake will be the last, and tastiest, part of my Christmas preparations, and I’ll begin on them next week. Yesterday I put up what passes for a Christmas tree at our house. The ‘tree’ is made of several dowels set into a central ‘trunk’ on a pedestal.  One granddaughter, who was old enough to assess her surroundings, looked at it last year and wanted to know where our tree was. I told her this was a special tree with just our most special ornaments on it. She favored me with one of her “yeah, right Gram” looks of skepticism.

Before we moved to a house with very little storage space, I had an enormous number of Christmas decorations.  Added to that, I usually purchased at least fourteen live wreaths for our outdoor décor and hung most of them on the fences of our rural three acres.  Now I’ve got one wreath to hang on our front door, and all my decorations are stored in just three 14-gallon tote boxes.  When we moved south we distributed most of our tree ornaments to family members and kept the really special ones for the dowel tree. I am of mostly German heritage by birth, but of Scandinavian heritage by marriage, and come Christmas time I am slowly reverting to the Scandinavian way of doing things: less is having to become more.

I’m not too pleased with the way Christmas has become so commercialized.  I can’t blame manufacturers and retailers for wanting to make a buck, but I wish they’d wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving to begin the assault. In retaliation, not that “they” would care at all, I’ve waited until now to do my own thing.  Today, just eleven days before Christmas, and while I’m in the midst of making a big batch of cassoulet and two loaves of bread, I’ll finish the last minor touches of my holiday decorating.

Again this year I’m not going to wrap our ‘street tree’ trunk with white lights as do so many of our neighbors here at SCCL.  Besides what I believe is a waste of electricity, and maybe my halo is on too tight, the curmudgeon in me just resents having to go along with ‘the group’ on this one.  I think it looks dumb.  I remember, as a child of about ten, being driven by car through some neighborhood on Long Island where they did a big light festival at Christmas time.  It must have been my Mother’s always reminding us to turn out the light when we left a room: all those lights on must have seemed to me to be a waste of electricity. It still seems to me to be a waste. The extent of my outdoor illumination will be to leave on the front porch light.

I’ll take down the dowel tree and the other decorations on January 2^nd – after all, they’ll have been up for about three weeks. I don’t want them to get too dusty!

 

 

All sorts of things wound up on our tree: a little bell that once hung on our back screen door, a drop from Frank's Mom's chandelier, even a silver earring we found on the street.  Everything has a great memory to go along with it.