Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Yesterday I got this call from Madd Maxx down in Louisiana who had been playing catch up on my blog and saw the last string of posts. He was all, "Giiiirl, what is YOUR problem? What's with all that dry skin, bad sinuses bah humbug waaa, waaa, waaa business? You need to put some ho, ho, ho in your mo jo and get down with Christmas." And I was all, "I KNOW I have a bad attitude, I know. I'm workin' on it. I got online and bought three presents and I put up the tree dammit." He declared his phone call a holiday intervention and cheered me up with some conversation about how he was supposed to get snow last night, and everybody in Cajun country was going nuts because they never get snow. I promised to straighten out my attitude and jingle my bells, and he promised not to hit me with a yule log. I jumped in the car for the commute home, turned on the radio and lo and behold a Christmas song was playing. It was a sign from God, I tell ya'. It was Alvin and the Chipmunks, so I'm not sure what the the Big Guy was trying to tell me, but I think it had something to do with smiles. That, or he was reminding me for the 20th time to make that dental appointment. Anyhooo, in an effort to show my holiday spirit, I'm posting a few old Christmas pictures. After all, what's funnier than old family photos taken during holidays past with those flash bulbs that burned your retinas? Exactly. Today's selection? 1972-The Year of The Dog. Make that dogs. 13 to be exact. That is me and Super Cop under the tree. He is about three in this picture. Look at those cute little cheeks. I'm eight, and we were in the process of selling our Irish Setter puppies. She had thirteen puppies that winter in a refrigerator box in our basement. Twelve survived. The smallest was crushed by the rest of them. It was my first lesson in survival of the fittest. I wanted to keep at least one of the puppies, but mama said no. We had already sold a couple of them by the time we got the grand idea to load them into a laundry basket and take a picture. It's not really the dogs that make me smile in this picture. Take note of the other things in this picture. 1. My pretzel pants. I thought these were the coolest pants ever. That and the orange paisley dress I wore in kindergarten were probably the two earliest signs of the twisted sense of fashion that would follow me into adulthood. Good thing I became an adult in the 80's. Mama made these pants and fortunately, she managed to avoid the baggy crotch issue she had at the time with the pants she made for Super Cop.

2. The Christmas tree. Is that not the sorriest tree you've ever seen? That was in the early days of artificial trees when they didn't look anything like a real tree. It appears that we asked to decorate the tree, and mama said "Ah, what the heck, knock yourself out". And we made a few homemade snowflakes, got bored with the whole mess, and quit early. Or another likely scenario is that I put myself in charge of the whole thing and bossed Super Cop around until he got mad and quit.

3. The container for the puppies. Nothing says Christmas like a worn out laundry basket. We made absolutely no effort at class with that one did we?

4. And my all time favorite Christmas decoration (next to Aunt June's aluminum tree with the rotating colored light wheel)...ta da! The cardboard fireplace. I loved that thing and thought it was the neatest thing ever. Funny thing, though. I have asked dozens of people my age over the years if they had a cardboard Christmas fireplace, and they all looked at me like I was crazy.

So to jump start my ho ho ho and in the spirit of all things merry and bright, I want you to tell me dear readers about the tackiest decoration of childhood holidays. Let's hear about your cardboard fireplaces or your pink flocked trees. Share, make me smile and help me dodge that yule log.

9 comments:

Amy said...

I can't remember a tacky Christmas decoration, per se, but in honor of your favorite pretzel pants, I did rock a (what I thought at the time was) an awesome pair of Hee Haw overalls. You know, from the television show? Even as a small little girl, my look left something to be desired.

*Sigh*

Merry Christmas!
Amy:)

janjanmom said...

My darling hubby had a cardboard fireplace and he stills smiles real big remembering it. He and his sister LOVED it.

karisma said...

Tacky? I went with cardboard and that brought back so many nice memories of the things the kids have made. Each year they go back in the box and we try and use them again. TC made a lovely angel out of paper and tissues one year. It finally fell apart last year. How sad!

Can't say we've ever had a cardboard fireplace, its a bit hot down here at xmas time!

Those purple pretzel pants ARE cool! Clearly you were a child of great taste!

Anonymous said...

Hey! We had a cardboard fire place! .. but ours was more of a roll of courrogated cardboard that was painted like a fireplace, for easy storage? Mom would bring it down from the attic and _unroll_ it in front of an alcove. The stockings still had to hang from the doorknobs and the top of the tv.

Kelley with Amy's Angels said...

I really didn't like my Christmas stocking. It was really long and it had red, green and white stripes. My mom cross-stitched my name on it. All my friends had realy cute red stockings with the white fur/fuzz.

I would have LOVED a cardboard fireplace though! That's awesome!

Jan n Jer said...

We had a cardboard fire place, i too thought it was the coolest thing.(great minds think a like). My stocking was nothing more then a knee high sock, it was always filled with fruit, nuts and candy.

Cruise Mom said...

We had a cardboard box fireplace too! I loved that thing. And an aluminum tree with the spinning light wheel. And a white flocked table decoration I think my Mom still has.....

oreneta said...

I sent you an email and it didn't bounce back, so check your span/danger list whatever...it may have arrived!

Trailboss said...

My childhood friend Shawn had a White Christmas tree with a colored light that shown on it. It was right in front of their LARGE window in the formal living room. I was so envious because we always had a "real" tree. When I think back now that white tree was really awful!

Someone I knew then had a cardboard fireplace but I can't remember who it was.

We had red stockings with our names glued on with gold sprinkles. That was about the extent of my mother's creativity. But I do remember it fondly. She wrote our names in cursive too which I always thought was a bit odd.