I took some pictures for Christmas...

ET Phone Home...!

I have added some pictures of some of my kids to my blog, and my tree.

This one is of Mathie.  The wagon is because she hasn't been walking too well lately.  The blanket is on my Mom made out of all scraps.  My Dad had it in the nursing home.  It is a very heavy, warm blanket and work perfectly on those cold nights we had recently, and Mathie doesn't mind at all....

"You are not getting me off this bed...no way, no how, so don't even try!"

 Of course there  is Wesley.  George calls him an Electrolux with legs.  Mainly because of the way hi is shaped.  But he also love to pick up trash when we are walking.  He is a Jack Russell mix.  He was found when he was puppy, under a portable, and you can't tell, but some not so smart of kind person tried to cut his ears (and he has sooooommmme ears let me tell you), because he has little slits on the top of them.  His tail was docked also.  He is very affectionate, once he decides you are ok.

"Don't I look innocent... don't believe anything you hear..."

This is Mr. Lars... we love him, we love all our kids, so I guess that is misleading... but he is just special.  He especially loves his Mom, (that's me!) and he is a little Dickens.  However, that doesn't make him any less endearing to us.  This year he has decided to spend time under the tree skirt. This is one of the feral cats my sister has outside her house.  Since most of them are either lost or hit by cars, I told her one year that I would take one of the males and keep him as an indoor cat.  That  is what we did, brought him all the way back from North Carolina.  Boy, did we get a good one...
                                                                             

"O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum..."

This is our Christmas Tree.  It only looks like it has a lot of lights, because all of the ornaments or... the majority are glass ornaments from Germany.  Oh, and of course it has tinsel and a little bit of garland on there.  It is a real tree that we get from Costco.  This is the second year now.

Christmas tree shopping was always my job with my Dad when I was younger.  We would always go out on Christmas Eve pick out our tree, and believe you me, it was never an easy task.  My Dad loved trees, and some years we would get live trees, which he planted in the front yard.  That was in NY, and they usually did well, as did most of the trees my planted.

It was cold usually, and I was very particular.  That is if it was a cut tree.  If it was balled, my Dad had the final word.

When I learned or got up the nerve to chew the tree lot guy down in price... well, that was a red letter day for me.   The fact that the next day the trees would be worth nothing to the guy never dawned on me.  Naive...ya think?

We would come home, bring the tree in, and, get it in water and up on the stand, have dinner, and let the decorating begin.  Dad would first string the lights on the tree, then the garland and then he would retire to the couch, and tell me what spots needed ornaments.  To set the mood we would switch between German Christmas Carol (LP's) and the TV had on the Yule Log at Gracie Mansion and Christmas Carols in the back ground...  By midnight the tinsel would go on the tree.  First that was my Mom's job, then I was able to help her, and then my sister would join in...however, that is when the fighting started... I was the (or may I still am...) the perfectionist, and wanted the tinsel put on one or two strands at a time, my sister on the other had didn't have the patients for that...she wanted it on in globs...  So needless to say my parents turning into referees before the night was out.

Well, Dad is gone now, so I do all the decorating, and George will tell me where there is an empty spot, and of course supply the encouragement and compliments when it is done.