A few years back, we stopped putting up a Christmas tree. Did it bother me? Truth be told, yes it did, it bothered me a lot. It was The Missus Herself who made that call and, as it is with most of her decisions, there was a lot of logic behind it.
We would be traveling at Christmas, why put up a tree? Well, it made sense and, as The Missus Herself never does anything halfway, it would save a lot of work. Both in the decorating and in the undecorating, which would be rendered unnecessary. We still put lights in the windows and she assures me that when the kids and their tribes come to visit at Christmas, we shall decorate like in olden times. Well, our olden times at any rate.
Anyhoo, rather than me natter on, I'll share some photos from Sarge's Christmases Past...
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| Decorated tree, manger scene, cat under the tree, what could be more Christmasy? |
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| Peeking through a window in The Missus Herself's Christmas Village. |
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| The wee tree The Nuke and The WSO had at their apartment for a number of years. |
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| Cats (that's Sasha) and discarded wrapping paper, it's a thing ya know? |
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| Anya seems startled to have her picture taken. Probably because that's not her toy! |
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| Looks like Grandpa and Grandson have hit the Christmas Cheer perhaps a wee bit much? |
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| Christmas has to involve family. (The Nuke was behind the camera.) |
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| Must be Christmas morning! |
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| Gotta have Christmas dinner, and yes I do love Brussels sprouts. |
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| Sasha wants to open presents right now! |
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| My grandson wondering if auntie Nuke is going to drop him, and perhaps now is a good time to vomit... |
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| Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa meet their great-grandson for the first time. |
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| Son and grandson, the wee lad seems tuckered out by all the excitement. |
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| Yeah, I love Christmas. |
Since Rancho Juvat is still the designated Christmas rejoin point, we still put up the decs. It was the same with my parents, we the kids and grandkids traveled to their house for the celebration. It wasn't until we were stationed in Hawaii, that the mantle was passed and they started visiting us. It's been us now for about 25 years. I expect we'll pass it on sometime, probably after the arrival of grandkids. (Please, God! A grand child for Christmas next year would fabulous)
ReplyDeleteWatching Mrs J and MBD making Christmas Cookies yesterday was enjoyable. So I guess it's all worth it. Because, as I recall, Christmas is all about family, started that way, and has been that way since. Think I'd like to keep it that way.
Once again, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, to all.
Among the clan when I was nobbut a lad, our house is where everyone eventually wound up. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins. Was it crowded, yes, in the best kind of way.
DeleteMay your home be filled with love juvat!
Funny thing about being a grandparent - especially the baby daughter of your baby daughter! Hard to express the joy!
DeleteMost Merry Christ-filled Christmas, folks, and a great New Year, with happiness and cheer.
Can I say it? MAGA.
Say it, and say it again!
DeleteMerry Christmas to you and yours!
These photos show what Christmas is all about, a family awaiting the arrival of the Son, celebrating family although the restraint shown at unopened presents at 1010 on the 25th is admirable. As for EU food........ugh! As to same photo with the one heaping gravy boat, that would be enough for ME, where is more for everybody else?.......... :) Echoing juvat's wassail, to all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there was another vat of gravy on the stove. I think one of the kids looked at that vessel and said, "We're going to need a bigger boat!"
DeletePeace and love to you and yours Nylon12. Oh yeah, stay warm!
Swell photos of the season. Just wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI love looking through the old photos this time of year. Takes me back.
DeleteThanks Suldog.
Merry Christmas.
ReplyDeleteLooking at Great Grandpa, that apple stayed real close to the tree.
Yes, it did.
DeleteMerry Christmas to you and Mrs. Cranky.
Decs are a given in our house, even if we're spending some of it elsewhere. We have a fake tree so it's not a difficult deco task though. However, my son has always been overwhelmed and overstimulated at Christmas, really not liking the season. So putting on the Fa-la-la and keeping my son in check is always a challenge. Then again, he's living in a group home now so my wife went all out. Our halls are fully and fabulously decked so she's all holly jolly.
ReplyDeleteControlled stimulation is a thing. Those people who try to make their domiciles visible from space and with a tree in every room? Yikes.
DeleteI like small colored lights that don't blink and nice traditional glass ornaments. The tree shouldn't be able to communicate with the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Not-blinky lights helps so ever much. Being able to turn them off, even more so. Though I have always loved laying under the tree and looking up into it.
I feel your son's pain. Really. Having always been that kid that preferred quiet corners, closets (not that type of closet) and noises I make to being in the center of rooms, or out in the open, or around too many noise sources.
I am glad he's doing well in the group home. And glad your wife can indulge her inner decorator.
Tuna - Good to know the Minnow is doing well.
DeleteBeans- Not a big fan of the twinkling lights either.
DeleteBadgers love flashing lights, provided they were made by Federal, or Whelen!
DeleteHeh.
DeleteThanks Gents. His group home is fully decked, but for some reason he can handle that. I guess it has to do with that not being "his" house. He does consider it his place, but less so than ours I suppose. He'll be over later on Christmas, yet not in the morning. Opening presents is a trigger so we'll bring him over after. It's never easy, but we've sort of worked out a balance.
DeleteBalance helps, I'm sure.
DeleteEven when we are traveling, putting up the tree by the front window, with a timer to start it up in the late afternoon, is still something of a security measure - makes the place look occupied.
ReplyDeleteThe times we live in....sigh.
Frank
It's been that way since the late 60's as far as I know, crime prevention specialists telling people to put some lights on timers and such.
DeleteAt least we don't have to worry about raiding war parties of festive fun Native Americans playing through during the holidays as many of our ancestors on whatever frontier they were on had to.
Frank - Ah yes, the security aspects of the holiday. What have we come to?
DeleteBeans - We do have that going for us.
DeleteWhen both sets of parents lived within the same AOA, we'd do one, then the other. Drive 3 hours, see one, spend a while, drive 40 minutes, see the other, drive home 3 hours, do presents to each other when we got home, do Day After Christmas dinner by ourselves. Made for one long day, very long day, followed by a not-so-long day.
ReplyDeleteThen her parents moved west, so it was easy to just go to the one house in one day, or stay overnight. Still did Day After Christmas dinner.
Then, due to finances and physical limitations, we just stayed home. Easier on both of us, since the swirling madhouse down there at the ancestral home was just too much.
Two years ago, we tried to do it all over again, which was a disaster on so many levels. More horror story than holiday.
We are now permanently staying home. We both are too easily freaked out by swirling chaos and lack of schedule. So we do Christmas Dinner, and on Boxing Day is the boiling of carcasses (two large turkey breasts, we're a white meat family) and we feed off the leftovers of Christmas for almost a week, then do roughly the same for New Year's but with ham.
We have found a tradition that doesn't leave us screaming at each other or at the world, while simultaneously trying to hide from everyone.
Calm is good, definitely good.
DeleteJeanie and I are trying to secure some sense of order. BUT, when we were younger, the rush of days and nights happened and now I see why my parents (always present) got tired and left early. :-)
DeleteA sense of order and calm is nice, but with the little ones around it's seldom that way.
DeleteThen again, I'm as noisy as they are at times.
Great set of family photos.
ReplyDeleteWe switched to an artificial tree when we had the addition built on the back of our house, the new room has a peak of around thirteen feet, but the planning committee, (wife) issued an official tree height edict limiting the tree to nine feet.
A nine foot tall tree looks wonderfully impressive, but that also means that putting up the tree means ladder work for a couple of short senior citizens, and I am thinking that a few years from now common sense and safety will mean shifting to a new and much shorter tree.
And we found out the hard way that each connection of the tree should be well coated with a dry lube at assembly.
No photo exists, but image two ladders with a beam across the ladder tops, and some rigging gear to get the tree section apart at the stuck joint.
Like many above said, we used to try to do all the family on the same day, and we stopped that some years ago.
Merry Family Christmas indeed!
I'm surprised you didn't build a crane for that!
DeleteGreat story!
I love the pictures. Thanks so much for sharing OAFS. Generations together give security in the whole process of living. PLUS, when you're the oldest guy in the room people ask you if you want another glass of wine. My grand daughter, now 12, doesn't seem to want to be with me as much as she did when she was five. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteWe return to Santa Cruz every Christmas time. The trip is getting harder and it takes a little longer to get over the jet-lag. It is all worth it. Just about now, after four weeks, in our own place, near family, but not constantly with them, we start to want to return to the beach.
Ah, the kids as they get close to the teen years. We've all been there I suppose. They do grow out of it. Eventually, or so I'm told.
DeleteThe Christmas Village made me sad. My Mpm had a huge one, that took over most of the dining room. I inherited it, upong her death. My storage locker was broken into, and the village was one of the things stolen. I am glad yours is just fine!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that Scott.
DeleteCats and Christmas trees, not always a perfect fit! Have a good memory of the tree going over several times in the middle of the night before Dad finally nailed it to the floor and "convinced" the cat to stay out of the thing.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, thanks for sparking some memories and best wishes.
Our first cat was an outdoorsy kind of guy, couldn't understand why the indoor tree was not for climbing. Dad and Mom convinced him that being under the tree was fine, in the tree - right out!
DeleteMerry Christmas to you and yours Shaun. Hope Red and Nona get an extra treat or two on Christmas Day!