Not a Creature Was Stirring ...

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Feliz navidad a todos y a todos buenas noches!

Joyeux Noël et A tous une bonne nuit!

Merry Whatever You're Having!

With visions of meaty bones dancing in their heads ... On Snausage! on Marrobone, on Puperoni and Canine Carry Outs. On snacky bits, on Milk Bone! On pig ears, and Scooby Snacks ... After all these damn good smells coming from around here lately, it's about time we cashed in! Please visit us, Santa Dog, we've been pretty good this year!

P.S. Could we please have some of the turkey bits when you guys are done with that? That taste of gravy I got tonight was pretty damn good! Oh, and those butter cookies smell real yummy too ....

Oddly Enough, That's What My Clock Says Right Now ...

But then, I still haven't changed my shelf clock back, so weird how serendipity sometimes comes into play ... well, now that i think about it, that's kind of the nature of serendipitous events ... Chalk it up to too many late hours and some Christmas cheer I had earlier. But as Emily Litella would say (rest her soul), Never mind!

This ornament definitely has a story behind it ... I got this (and a few others, namely the Jack Russell Terrier, Peacock, Pickle, etc.) during a verrryyy long delay at the Denver airport several years ago. At the time, I was traveling pretty frequently and it was close to Christmas, of course ... there was a snow event either in Denver or east (I do not recall) and it looked dicey that I'd even get out of there in time, and it was right about December 22. Well, if you've ever had to kill time during a delay or layover in Denver, you'll know there's not a lot to do there unless you like shops you'd likely never enter under normal circumstances, endless overpriced food and drink, and no smoking areas allowed. Except! There are these signs to a 'Smoker's Lounge' that must have tantalized many frazzled, deprived smokers ... until you get there! It turns out that one bar in the entire airport will allow limited smoking ... that sounds nice until realize there's like a 3 drink minimum to enter and it appears you have to keep drinking if you want to hang out there for very long. (Think about that if you want a cig before an early morning flight sometime, hehe.)

Now, of course virtuous me never took advantage of it, even this time. And I really wanted a cig bad, but the principle of the whole thing just ticked me off. So ... I wandered off to find some sort of mildly interesting shopping to try to make the time pass until I was supposed to leave on a flight that might maybe get out and back to Des Moines that night.

Finally I discovered and wandered into the Discovery Store, and that was a sight for my surely sore eyes! All things Discovery Channels and more were to be had ... talking Steve Irwin dolls (I wish I had gotten one of those! They were on clearance.) DVDs ... calendars ... toys ... you name it. But I gravitated instantly to the (mostly Polish and Czech blown glass) ornaments that were temptingly marked 50% off! Now we were talking! Something i was actually interested in buying! I ended up buying five or six ornaments (most of which have appeared here or will appear here soon), one of which was this Cuckoo Clock. (And yes, this one was made in Poland ... yay!)

In retrospect, besides finding it really original and pretty, I suspect it appealed subconsciously to me because I was preoccupied with time at the moment. I have to admit, every year I put it on the tree, I don't fail to think of the circumstances in which I purchased it. It's all Proustian, I know, but he was on to something there. It just took him a hell of a long time to prove it!

Ornamental Perspective ...

Last night, Fernymoss was having fun playing with reflections and perspective, and, I think came up with a dandy one in this shot. I think it speaks for itself to the diversity and eclectic collection you find on our tree ...

More World Ornament Blogging: the Critters

Before I fade any further, here are two more of our animal themed ornaments, respectively the camel and the elephant. We keep these toward the bottom of the tree (thus the exposed presents!) to warn us when the dogs are too close for comfort (notice the bells).

These shots show almost all of the presents under the tree, minus those I have for Fernamoss (which I have still to wrap!), so they show we're almost all the way there for this year....

I love the camel in the first shot, and the great sparkle Fernymoss got in this shot, as the view below doggie eye level. The elephant is also one of my favourite shots we got tonight, with its colourful background with warning bell ...

There's still more to cram under the tree, though necessarily, we'll have to put the pups' treats up high tomorrow night, so that Santa Dog can keep them safe before they can dig into them on Christmas. They're getting lots of yummy stuff, including Pig Ears, Ham Bones and assorted treats for being (pretty) good dogs this year... we doubt they're going to complain! And it's really fun to watch them unwrap the bones on Christmas morning ... pics to follow!

Ornament Blogging: Dragons Love Holiday Trees Too!

This is just a little fun one that I found at World Market last weekend, and was going to be a Christmas Eve gift to Fernymoss, but he'd had such a bad day at work, I gave it to him early to cheer him up. Every year I seem to find a neat, very different ornament there, so I can't resist ... I was looking at the animal ornaments and was thinking, I wish there were a Dragon one, that would be cool for the tree! Then I looked up and spotted this little guy and he was back on his way to our tree! (I also got an Iguana for Fernymoss, but don't tell him yet!) Just one more step to adding more animals to the tree, as we do every year ... as you'll see in the next post!

Ornament Blogging Around the World

Tonight I decided to get in some of the world themed ornaments we have, so here's the take on France (and with apologies to Martin Mull: ah France, I love you so, I love French Toast and escargot ...). Admittedly, I have soft spot for this ornament I got a few years ago, as France looks better and better to us the past year or so. If only we could just uproot and move there to stay, in some sunny clime in Provence ... ahhhhhhhhh.

Sucks being a member of the reality based American community here, eh? I called the precinct captain of the Edwards campaign here today and I think I'll be attending one of his big speeches here next Saturday night. I haven't seen him yet (due to most events being scheduled while I'm working) but this one I don't want to miss, right before New Year's and the Caucus as well. She told me the Edwards folks would also be having food provided at the Caucus, which is definitely a new one for me. Today, for example, I got calls from the HRC campaign (desperate much?) and Dodd, who in a fit of pique while caught candy making, I rudely hung up to the recording. But I digress!

The first shot is an ensemble shot, complete with bird butt. I hope you like that touch, hehe. The second is obviously up closer, and with what Fernymoss referred to as the Death Star approaching (he took that one). Either way you look at it, I'm glad to have this one on the tree again in its third year ... More to come!

Ornament Blogging: Sometimes Life Just Gives You the Bird!

Last night I talked about our propensity to include birds on our tree, so here's another example of a bird-themed ornament we always make sure to place in a prominent spot on the tree. This cardinal and nest is a hand-me-down from my sister, who probably got it sometime back in the 70's and decided she didn't want it anymore a few years ago (when the box of cast off ornaments arrived mysteriously on our front porch). This is one of those pieces that, no matter how tacky it may appear to contemporary sensibilities, is one of our favorites. It attaches to the tree with a clothespin and even has two tiny eggs in the nest ... what more could you ask for? And it has one of our favorite native birds, the Cardinal, as its focus .... I guess it's one of those 'must have' ornaments we have in the repertoire, without which the holiday just wouldn't seem complete. Kind of like my Santa in a Rickshaw coming soon ....

Update on the heating situation: our repair guy came by today and managed to coax the furnace into working for a few hours, but warning that it could crap out at any time. Well, that happened this evening. It now looks like we're buying the house a new furnace for the holiday. I'm getting on top of this first thing in the morning, but I'm not optimistic that we can get it replaced within the next week, given the holidays. So at this point it looks like we'll be having a chilly holiday with just the radiator space heaters and the oven to keep us warm. As Fernymoss put it tonight, this is going to be a candle lit holiday! At least we have lots of blankets and comforters to wrap up in until we can get the new unit installed. And with more snow on the way predicted for Friday and Saturday, I'll be doing plenty of baking!

So it goes ... we'll muddle through. (Apologies to Kurt Vonnegut, jr. Bless him!)

Ornament Blogging: Flying By the Moon

I guess it's past time to get the ornament blogging going here, since we're still snow covered, icy, and as of today when I got home, heat free. The furnace is acting up again and hopefully it can be fixed again this time though we know a new one is on the horizon sometime in the next year or so ....

Anyway, this is Fernymoss' tree topper extravaganza, complete with the witch and the blue moon ... our usual toppers who cede the way to more traditional things to come below ... such as the following. You know, things like architecture from countries like such as.* Actually there's a lot going on in this shot, but the highlights are obviously the infamous Tour Effel, and if you look closely, you'll the see the wine bottle not too far off. Birds of some sort have always been a constant on our trees, and you'll see some more soon as we get more individual shots taken of them. Fernymoss has been trying to get a lot of shots in ambient light, but with varying degrees of success, and frankly, though the flash gives better definition it does zap the colour of the lights. We're going to keep experimenting though and if anything good comes out you'll be seeing it here soon!

Oh yeah! I was at World Market yesterday and found a lovely little red dragon I just had to get for Fernymoss (after all they were 50% off!) He'll definitely be appearing here sooner or later!

*(And if you get that reference, you've been paying attention to Countdown and other YouTube type places for your teen airhead updates on vacuousness. I'm sure she's just a delightful girl in person, LOL. Like totally!)

Tired Pups and Humans ...

And when the humans were done adorning the tree (well, at least temporarily), the dogs rested. Too much activity and getting shooed out of the way in the process, I suppose. It's going to be harder now that we're going to start to put things under it ... including a trip to Petco this week to get their holiday treats. Wait for the Christmas morning pics of their unwrapping of the goodies!

I went shopping for a few hours today and it damn near did me in ... I'm glad I'm almost done with this for this year! We're scaling back (like many, it seems) this year, so I think that's a relief of some sorts. Hedging against the economic storm that seems poised to hit in 2008 ... We're planning on going low key this year. Turkey breast and good food on Christmas Eve, some good champagne and a muted whoop ti doo on the big day.

I think the times call for it, with the Caucuses barely 2 days after New Year's! On January 4, we can start answering the phone again ...