“No matter how carefully you stored the lights last year, they will be snarled again this Christmas.”
Last night it was mostly misty rain, but sometime during the late night the rain got heavier. Right now it is still damp and cloudy and showers are forecast; however, there is a plus as it is warm, near 50˚.
Henry is now known as the dog who peed on the floor while signing up to see Santa. He didn’t mind the dogs, but all the people made him nervous so he peed. Despite that he did get quite a few compliments. Handsome dog was the most common.
Early this morning Henry and I both jumped when the alarm clock sounded because neither one of us is accustomed to hearing it. Every other morning I sleep until I wake up and Henry is right there with me. This morning it was 6:30, the middle of the night to me. I know a nap is coming.
My factotum is here putting up the Christmas lights. A couple of my neighbors have theirs already lit each night so I thought I’d join them. I’m also thinking of bringing up a bit of Christmas every day a box at a time.
When I was a kid, everyone had real Christmas trees. The tree lights were big, colored bulbs which quickly got hot to the touch. Those lights went on first. They were my father’s only contribution and his worst nightmare, his bête noire. They were tangled and didn’t always light because of a single burned out bulb. I remember he cursed a lot. The garlands were next, and my mother always put them on the tree. She draped them just so. Finally we got to put the ornaments on the tree. Most were glass. I always liked the colored ornaments, the blues, the purples and the reds. I have some of those old ornaments for my tree, a gift from my mother. She also gave each of us one of the big ornaments, the ones we couldn’t touch, which she always put on branches close to the top of the tree to keep them safe. Last to go on were the icicles. They were made of lead, and if carefully and individually put on the tree they’d hang down like real icicles.
The icicles around now are mostly plastic and float in the breeze of anyone walking by the tree. I don’t put any on my tree. If the tree had holes, my mother would put a cardboard Santa or a Rudolph card in the space. I do the same thing.
The traditions from my childhood are a part of my Christmas every year. I know it is the same for my sisters. We always thank my parents for that.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
November 26, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Hi Kat,
One of my jobs in high school was making lead tinsel. The lead tinsel line was in the cellar of the factory. We worked down there in the dark with the stacks of shipping cartons and the rats.
My mother decided I was the best person to remove tinsel from the packages because I knew how it went into them in the first place. So that became my Christmas tree decorating job. They wouldn’t let me put the tinsel on because I was thrower and my father demanded 3 strands carefully hung on each branch.
Lead tinsel, for all its negatives, definitely looked better than the modern stuff. If your tree is near the television, the new stuff will succumb to static electricity and become attracted to the tv screen. The tinsel will actually rise up and point in that direction.
The Xmas lights are probably every father’s bête noir. The pursuit of the blown bulbs in each string no longer applies but there are still the eternal wiry tangles.
It’s grey and raining here.
Enjoy the day.
November 26, 2018 at 1:10 pm
Caryn – Great Tinsel response. I like the term “thrower” for those of us who did not have the patience for individual strands. Our term tended to be Clumps
I don’t remember if we tried to remove tinsel to save for next year or if it headed out with the rest of the tree for that Christmas Tree graveyard.
I think it all changed for us when my Mother finally got possession of the aluminum tree that she had always coveted. The branches had their own individual paper sleeves which were carefully set aside for the end of the season. This silver bugger was no place for tinsel and so the tradition ended.
I do remember nursery rhyme Christmas lights which were prone to breakage of the shell and, of course, light failure which required hours of work to identify the offending bulb.
Today, the basement holds our tree of the last 20+ years. It will make its appearance on Friday afternoon and hopefully be assembled and lit that evening
Great to know a Tinsel Maker
Hedley in Detroit
November 26, 2018 at 6:13 pm
My Dear Hedley,
We tossed the tinsel with the tree. The boxes were cheap enough to buy new ones each year.
Even my father didn’t want to hang the tinsel. It took too much time and patience. My mother would finish hanging the tinsel then sigh with great satisfaction at the tree. She always told us to look and see how lovely the tinsel was.
I have wanted a full size aluminum tree for a long time, not as my tree but as a throwback decoration. My sister gave me a small new aluminum tree. I guess that will do.
Finding the offending bulb was tricky. Sometimes my father just couldn’t find the dead bulb. He’d give up and leave the strand on the floor.
I’ll go to the garden center to buy mine, probably this weekend.
November 26, 2018 at 6:04 pm
Hi Caryn,
What a rotten place to work. Dark is bad enough but the rats are too much. I don’t mind field mice but rats are another story. Yikes!!
I do understand you being the remover of the tinsel. The box configuration was complex. Your mother and my mother had the same method for those icicles. Mine hated it if we threw the icicles, but we did it so we could finish quickly. She went behind us removing the clumps and rehanging the tinsel. We sat down to watch television.
I don’t use tinsel anymore. One of my cats used to eat it. I saw a bit of a strand hanging out of her mouth and grabbed it. A whole icicle came out of her mouth. I took every bit of it off the tree.
I have some metal icicles I hang. They look great.
The lights became my responsibility, and my father was only too happy to be rid of the job. Every year I wind mine around cardboard so they won’t tangle.
It is cloudy here, but it didn’t rain.
November 26, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Oh! How I love to hear all of your stories. Having a real tree was part of my marriage contract, and until last year we had one. With the girls all grown, it made me melancholy to put it up myself. I found a white one with lights. I love how I can put my older ornaments and red birds in the branches. Things change and we must adapt. ( I keep telling myself.) Less is more every year. I will always have my memories. I am focusing on St. Nick now!
November 26, 2018 at 5:51 pm
splendid,
I have lived alone here since I bought the house, and I always have a tree. I so love the smell of the pine. This year I may get a shorter, smaller tree than usual. Actually I was thinking of 2 smaller trees beside each other.
I’m going to dig far back in my Christmas boxes to find stuff I haven’t put out in a while. I have some really neat Christmas decorations. My sister in Colorado already has her tree upend ready to decorate. We all still get real trees, but I know at some point all the hauling will be more difficult for me.
November 26, 2018 at 9:56 pm
I find it very interesting that both Christmas and Chaunkah are holidays that include lights and they occur at or close to the winter solstice which is the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. Of course biblical scholars know that Jesus was not born anywhere near the winter solstice but in the Springtime around Passover. Opps, but the Romans moved it to the winter solstice to continue their pagan celebrations.
Do folks living in the Southern Hemisphere decorate with Christmas lights on the longest days of the year? Living Australia I would celebrate at the beach.
Today was sunny with a low of 39 and a high of 50. Now the leaves are turning color and falling off the trees.
November 26, 2018 at 10:12 pm
Bob,
I remember my first Christmas in Africa. At some point we were sitting outside, and we realized that our weather was closer to weather at that first Christmas.
In Australia they also decorate but the beach plays a huge part.
It is pouring now and has been raining most of the day.