The main purpose of this posting is to share these fun and silly photos that Lisa and I took of ourselves in front of our first Christmas tree together, but I also have some vivid memories of the preparations we made for Christmas 1995. Although we had spent Christmas ‘94 together, this would be our first one while officially living together in our apartment (with my roommate Larry now gone). So we decided that we were going really dive into this season’s festivities and put up a tree.
My Dad’s cousin Arline had lost her husband Carl the year before, so she had decided that she no longer had any use for putting up a Christmas tree. She gave the whole kit’n'caboodle to Lisa and me: the tree, the lights, and the ornaments. It was actually more of a flimsly little artificial bush rather than a regal, healthy tree. Our biggest challenge was just getting it to stand up on its own. It was so low to the ground that we had to postition it on shaky plastic storage containers to get it elevated enough to actually begin to put gifts under it.
Stymie attacks the Mickey Mouse doll under the Christmas shrub
Basically every ornament that we had was from Arline’s collection, so there were ample owls (which they collected) and many homemade arts and crafts that Arline had made at the Wilmington Apartments. I mention these ornaments because, although we dumped the tree the following year (we left it in a Wal-Mart parking lot), we did keep nearly all of the ornaments and most of them are on the tree that is currently sitting next to me, including the world’s ugliest orange owl which Ashleigh and I always take utter glee in burying as far into the tree as possible.
Caught with my pants down with my buddy the tree
One disaster that I can still remember is when Stymie got into the tree during the middle of the night and we all heard a loud crash. The tree had taken a tumble. We all scurried out of our rooms in our night attire, Lisa’s tongue blazing with epithets toward the kitten from hell. Ashleigh came out in her long nightshirt and attempted to help in her own way by picking up a single ornament that had rolled all the way across the room and added it back onto the tree. This action lightened the mood a bit as we re-assembled the tree which was already on its last leg before Christmas had even arrived.
Lisa and her silkies presents…the tree
I also first began my annual tradition of taping all of our Christmas cards to the front door of the apartment during the 1995 holiday. Anyone who visits my house at Christmastime will see that this ’decorating idea’ has survived the last dozen years.
Have some nuts
Finally, Lisa and I decided to add a musical greeting on our answering machine to celebrate the holiday season. We were supposed to sing it together, but when we started, I found that I was the only singing the following lyrics: “Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock. Leave a mess-age after the beep. You have reach 253-0290. So leave a message for me.” To which Lisa finally opened her mouth and added “Yeah.”
Stymie and Mickey find the weak spots in the tree’s structure
Up next: Christmas 1995
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