Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Odds and ends, holiday edition

We put up the Christmas tree this weekend. My father and I made our annual trip to the tree farm, where we made a beeline for the part of the field where we found such great trees last year. This year the trees were still great, but they were twenty feet tall.

The one I ended up with is actually smaller than usual, but it had a bird's nest. (Since the nest was full of dried needles, I'm assuming the bird has flown south.) I hear a nest is good luck. I need a smallish tree, because this year I couldn't just throw the usual contents of the living room into the basement for a month. We're trying to get the basement empty in preparation for the remodeling. This project is one of the reasons I decided on the auspicious bird's nest tree...can't turn down some free good luck when you are about to embark on a major home project.

I don't have an outside electrical outlet, so I've never put up Christmas lights. I love lights. This year I found solar LED Christmas lights, and I was quite excited. Unfortunately, with the weak winter sun and my westward-facing house, the panels only get enough juice to power the lights until about 8:00. At least I'll look a little festive, unless it rains.

Next week we do the beigli and chrusciki. Counting up how many beigli we need hammered home the "first Christmas without" aspect of this holiday...the beigli was a very big deal to my aunt. One of her old cookbooks actually had her beigli distribution lists from 1966 to the mid-80's.

This time of year always has the slight dark cloud, since both my grandfathers had Christmas birthdays. The cemetery visits are part of the routine. We take a bouquet with cuttings from the trees, and for my Polish grandfather, a piece of chrusciki. They liked lights, too...I wonder if the cemeteries have good sun exposure. I can see it now, I'd end up on somebody else's blog for the tackiest holiday grave decoration.