Rerun

I got a few comments about the Eiffel Tower ornament on our holiday tree, so I thought I'd rerun a photo of it from ten (!) years ago. I found the ornament in the museum shop at San Francisco's Palace of the Legion of Honor back in 1998. I think I was there to see Picasso's "Guernica," if memory serves. It's a fragile glass ornament, so I try to be very careful with it.

We had a cut tree in 2006.

Today Callie goes back to the vet for a booster shot. She got a new version of her annual vaccine last month, and the vet said it would require a one-time booster after thirty days. In subsequent years, the booster won't be necessary.

A Saint Louis cardinal

Here's a new ornament for this year's holiday tree. It's a cardinal from Saint Louis, Missouri, brought to us by our friend Judy (Seine Judeet) when she visited last summer. Ken and I met Judy back in 1981 in Paris. She was on the same study abroad program that I was on all those years ago. We got back in touch through the internet and had a great time getting re-acquainted.

We don't have cardinals in France, except for this one. It looks great on the tree!

Judy became a French teacher and has had a wonderful career. I shouldn't say "had" because she's still at it. Thanks for the memories and the ornament, Judy! Come back and see us again!

Forty years

This is one of the first tree ornaments that I owned, and I still have it. Now it's forty years old. It came from that famous greeting card store, the one you go to "when you care enough to send the very best." Today I searched for the ornament online and surprisingly found it for sale on two sites. I saw one on Ebay for $8.95. On an ornament dealer site it's listed for $75.00. I don't remember what I paid for it in 1980, but I'll bet it was less than $10.00.

My 1980 acrylic wreath, forty years later.

Apparently, people collect these things. According to Wikipedia, the greeting card company in question started making dated ornaments in 1973.

Ornamental [1]

This will be a busy week for a lot of people, covid restrictions notwithstanding. Not so much for us, except for some food shopping for special holiday meals. So I thought I'd do a week of Christmas tree ornaments. I'll try to post some that I haven't in the past, but long-time readers will likely recognize some of these.

The tiny canoe is made totally of carved wood.

First, the image of the week this week is of a giant redwood, or is it a sequoia, ornament carved into a slice of wood. I like its simplicity. It was a gift from a friend whose favorite place is Yosemite National Park.

Today's post is a canoe ornament that I think came from Restoration Hardware in Palo Alto, California, back in the late '90s, if memory serves. The boat reminds me of camping trips in the Adirondacks when I was a kid. My father would get me up before dawn to take me out in either a canoe or a standard rowboat onto a misty mountain lake to fish (it would be light outside by the time we got to the boat). He liked to use live worms for bait, bought at the local general store the day before. It was most boring, baiting the hooks was gross, and I hated the whole thing. It's weird to have a fond memory of something I did not enjoy. P.S., I did enjoy the camping. It was just the fishing that I didn't like.

I got nothing

I haven't taken many photos lately and I'm running out! I'll have to get out with the camera again soon, weather permitting. Here's a blast from the past: it's an Eiffel Tower Christmas tree ornament that I've had for ten years or so, found in the Museum Shop at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor before we moved to France.

This photo is from 2006.

This year's tree is up and the ornament is there. I'll take some pictures of it soon.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Here's another favorite tree ornament of mine. It was a gift from a friend in California many years ago. The tree depicted is either a coastal redwood or a sequoia. I'm not sure which. I'm also not sure if it's actually made from redwood, sequoia, or some other wood. Whichever it is, the ornament reminds me of our time in California and the friend who gave it to us. And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

It wouldn't surprise me if this came from a craft shop in Mendocino.

The winds finally died down last evening. While the little tornadoes of fallen leaves were fun to watch, I'm glad they're gone.

Golden bear ornament

I've had this little golden bear for nearly thirty years. Ken gave it to me as part of a box of little glass ornaments back in nineteen eighty-something. There's also a circus bear, a polar bear, a dog, and a fish. This little golden bear is my favorite of the bunch.

I wonder if this Golden Bear went to Cal? Go Bears!

That's a miniature wine bottle ornament in the background. We've collected several of those over the years. This one actually has wine-colored liquid inside. The label says "Pinot Grigio. Once opened never to return." I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

Everybody knows, a turkey and some mistletoe

As the years go by, my memory goes with them. I can't really remember the details about this ornament. It was likely a gift and I know who the likely gift-giver is. I just can't remember if those memories are correct. The ornament is a figure of a wolf and I think it came from a gift shop in Yosemite National Park. Did it come from my friend, S.? Did I buy it myself? Doubts creep in like a San Francisco fog.

The wolf kind of reminds me of our former sheltie, Collette (1992-2006).

That's one of the great things about having done this blog for the past eighteen years. I now have many memories recorded, some in photographs, others in prose. A lot of the details from before that time, however, are kind of up for grabs. The big events are easy to remember. My first trip to Paris. Meeting Ken. Finishing my college education. Buying our first house. Things like that. The rest, well, the devil's in the details, as they say.

Ornamental [3]

Tennis anyone? I'm a tennis fan, and I like this ornament in the form of a tennis ball. It's much smaller than an actual tennis ball, more like the size of a ping-pong ball. If only I could remember where it came from. Bought? A gift? I've forgotten. I used to have an even smaller tennis ball bobble attached to my rolling travel bag so I could pick it out easily in baggage claim. The last time I flew, the bag came back without the bobble. It probably broke off somewhere along the way.

The ornament is fuzzy like a real tennis ball. My suitcase bobble was made of hard plastic.

Our temperature this morning, as predicted, is below zero Celsius. Just barely, but below. It's a frosty solstice morning!

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

If you've followed this blog for a while, you probably know I'm a tennis fan. So it follows that I'd have a tennis ball tree ornament. I first picked up a tennis racquet back in the early seventies, the age of Evert, Connors, and Navratilova, among others. I was never very good at it.

The smaller-than-life-size tennis ball ornament.

In the late eighties, I took a tennis class at the local community college in San Francisco, but I didn't get much better. The last time I picked up a racquet was 2003, just before we moved to France. I did, however, become pretty good at watching tennis on tv and, these days, many more tournaments are televised than there used to be.

Photo du Jour : The Holiday Tree

Click on the picture for a larger view.

I thought I'd put this up before it gets too late. I've been messing around with photoshop trying to learn new tricks (no "old dog" comments, please). The ornament on the top left is a hand-painted glass ball with a scene of the beach at Mendocino, CA. It was a gift many years ago. The ornament on the bottom left is the Tour Eiffel, which I bought at the museum shop at the Palace of the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco about 5 years ago.

Season's greetings to all!

And so I'm offering this simple phrase

This ornament is a miniature model of North Carolina's Cape Lookout lighthouse. It's just over twenty kilometers, or about thirteen miles (as the crow flies), from the town where Ken grew up. In fact, on a clear day, you can see the lighthouse from the beach just across the sound. It's only accessible by boat.

I've been to Hatteras lighthouse, but I don't think I've been to this one.

It's cold this morning, about 3ºC outside the house. The vineyard will be colder. Freezing fog is forecast for some areas nearby. It's beginning to look a lot like winter.

Will find it hard to sleep tonight

Another day, another favorite ornament. This one I found at a place called Restoration Hardware in the SF Bay Area. I looked up the store on line and it looks like it has gone seriously upscale from twenty or so years ago when I used to shop there.

I can row a boat, canoe?

At any rate, this little canoe reminds me of camping trips in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York when I was a kid. My dad liked to rent a canoe or other small boat and take it out on a lake at the crack of dawn to fish. He would, of course, drag me along (he also dragged me to a golf course a time or two to caddy for him. Yawn.) I had no interest in fishing whatsoever; no patience for it at all. But I must admit, paddling out onto a mirror-calm mountain lake as the sun rose and burned off the misty morning ground fog was quite pretty.

To kids from one to ninety-two

This ornament is a tiny bird house, although I don't think that there's a bird on Earth that could fit through the hole. Maybe a bee. But I really like its simplicity.

A little bird house.

It's a "busy" week ahead for us. Mostly for Ken. He's got a couple of appointments (a haircut and a covid booster) and he's going to drop by the garage to see about replacing the Peugeot's broken gear shift knob. There's some light grocery shopping to do, including getting cheese for our annual Christmas Eve fondue. On Saturday we'll be picking up the holiday bird and whatever other things we might have forgotten. I've decided to make apple tart for desserts, so apples are on the list.

Happy Christmas

Well, here we are. Puppy Claus has come and gone and left tasty morsels for dogs and kitty cats. And for us. We shall be enjoying a roast beast with all the trimmings.

A favorite wooden tree ornament.

Here's hoping that however you celebrate the end of the year, that you can do it in style with those you love.

The Ghost Of Christmas Past #2

My step-mom used to do a lot of craft-making. She was always working on something for every holiday that she would set around the house or hang on the tree or give as a gift. She made a lot of tree ornaments and I received a fair share of them many years ago.

A holiday wreath.

This is one of my favorites of hers. It's a wreath made from a lacquered wooden ring, with a tiny holiday tree in the middle embroidered on fabric and stuffed from behind to make it look like a little pillow. It's no more than three inches in diameter. It just says Christmas to me.

To its right is a cucumber ornament, part of a set of vegetable ornaments I found one year. I'm fond of food-related things for the tree. And there are more than one bunch-of-grapes ornaments hanging on it, too.

And, while you're here, let me wish you all the best for a healthy and happy 2009.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Un Jour, Une Tour [Edition Spéciale]

Here's a special edition of the Eiffel Tower series for the holidays! I got this ornament tower at the museum shop at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco back in the late '90s.

Every year since then it comes out for the tree, but gets packed away after with the other ornaments, so it doesn't have a place in the "permanent collection."

Jingle bells and ho-ho-ho to all!

Xmas eve

The old joke: It's not Christmas, and stop calling me Eve. Today we'll be making our annual fondue Suisse, a cheese fondue, for lunch. Three kinds of cheese from the region around the France/Switzerland border go into the dish, with some white wine. Then we dunk chunks of bread and apple into it. Yum.

A Life Savers tree ornament. I also have a green one.

It's nice to have traditions, rituals, to help mark the time. Traditions need not be religious to have significance in our lives. French people have their big holiday meal on Christmas Eve, and it lasts late into the night. We hold to our American tradition, which is to have the big meal on Christmas Day. Neither one of us likes to eat a huge meal just before bedtime.

Reindeer herd

With a dog to keep the herd together. The silver reindeer came as a tree ornament, but it's so heavy that it doesn't work on our small tree. So he's joined the other two on the mantle.

None of these reindeer has ever run over a grandma.

The roofer (well, the roofer's elves) showed up on Wednesday afternoon, a day early! They cleaned out the valleys on either side of the dormer window above the kitchen and worked on the chimney, where the leak is. They said the flashing looked intact, but that there were some cracks in the mortar above it, so they patched that. We won't know if it worked until it rains. And, thankfully, the days are warm, dry, and sunny for the moment, so the patching will have time to dry properly.

We also asked them for an estimate to redo the underside of the deck (the roofer is also a mason). The paint there is peeling badly and there are cracks in the concrete, so it all needs to be fixed up and re-painted.

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh

Back in the early 1970s, my step-mom was into crafts and made a number of tree ornaments, including this wreath. I have a small number of her ornaments, as I'm sure my other siblings do. One of them (an ornament, not a sibling), a snowflake made from rolled strips of paper, has since disintegrated. I think the glue that held it all together got too old. It was my favorite, and I still have pieces of it, but it can no longer hang on the tree.

Crafty. I can see it's beginning to fray around the edges.

It looks like the wreath might have been made from a doily (or something like that). If I remember, she gave these ornaments to me in the years after I left home so I'd have something to hang on my little Charlie Brown-style Christmas trees. It blows my mind that they are about fifty years old. Yikes!