Grandma's about to be run over by a reindeer

I have fine tuned all the pictures from our Thanksgiving week trip and put them into a slide show on photobucket. Now I can relax and reminisce as I look at them and remember what a wonderful time we had together. 

It was totally different going to the Keys at Thanksgiving this year. For the first time ever we didn't fill the house with family to feast on turkey and all the traditional dishes. Well, we did have a large turkey breast the weekend before. And, we did get the Christmas tree up, a wreath on the door and a few other must haves before leaving. I think my husband would not have been able to enjoy our trip if that wasn't done on schedule. Quite a paradox for a fisherman like him.                 Click on title for more...
Ah Christmas! Every year my husband and I drag down boxes and boxes of stuff from the attic. He lines the roof with icicle lights all in white, the bushes too, and they must flash at just the right speed. it would be okay if our house didn't have such a high roof-line. Then he fills the plant shelves inside with his nutcracker collection, an array of Madonnas, boughs of artificial greenery and lights. The piece de resistance is the biggest plant shelf, in the kitchen at the center of the house. That space is reserved for a menagerie of animals amid a forest of artificial greens, lights, a porcelain group of Elizabethan carolers a musical Santa, and three well-worn elves on a ladder leading to a small Christmas tree decked out with ornaments and lights. He is Monk-like in setting this up. It must exactly match the final version of the previous year's display. This is in addition to the seven foot tree in the living room.

We have enough doo-dads to deck out 4 or 5 normal homes music and all. I must admit to being at fault in this bloated collection of decorations. We have made a tradition of buying one new ornament (at least) each year. Usually it has the year written on it and we tried to make it fit our situation that year. The years in Pennsylvania are remembered by a rustic red rocking horse ornament and and orange kitty cat. Michigan is remembered with the igloo ornament, the silver snowman and the pink enameled ribbon from 1994. The year I survived breast cancer. So that accounts for 33 ornaments on top of the boxes of bulbs and balls and my inheritance of mother's stash.

After Christmas most years, we are stunned by the half-price sales. Oh, our tree skirt is really getting worn, we should buy this. And more gift wrap, and cards. But, gift bags are much easier and recyclable! And, there is never enough time to send out Christmas cards these days. So, when Christmas comes, we just have to put up the poor worn out tree skirt one more time, after all my mother made it for our first Christmas together. This year I found 3 brand new, still in the package, tree skirts. I really should sell them. Maybe an after-Christmas half-price sale on eBay. Or maybe I will pull a fast one and take some of those boxes to Goodwill before they end up in the attic again.

You know, one thing that really gets to me sentimentally is looking at all the ornaments we don't put up. Some of them are so old and moth-eaten, or so delicate and special, I don't want to risk losing them. There are the tatted angels my mother made and the crochet baskets holding little bears that my oldest sister made. The clear plastic snowflake with the picture of my daughter and mother is one of my favorites and it does make the tree, front and center, every year.


Well, I must go. Got to get the turkey in the brine soak for tomorrow's post-Thanksgiving Day feast. Oh yeah! I can't wait.