A mixed bag... from FA reader T.M.

 Hi T,

Get on that pony and ride girl! Don’t deny the lame! Blog Blog Blog! Comix Comix Comix!

How’s that for sparing the its oks with too many exclamation points!

Sending you a few pics for your amusement.

Christmas is a mixed bag for me. At it’s core, though I am not a religious person, it is not a bad holiday, but American excess and materialism/ consumerism tend to ruin things for me, and I agree the forced aspect is a bit much.

I was much more cynical about it in my younger days, but now I tend to ignore and not feed into the aspects I don’t enjoy and focus on the good stuff; especially the family time ( talk about a mixed bag) as that is increasingly more important and the old folk are either dying off, or in the last few precious (?) years of life. 

My Mom loves Christmas and always goes over board decorating, though she doesn’t do a fraction of what she used to.

Here is a pic of a 12 1/2 foot tree decked out with ornaments on every single square inch of tree. Don’t ask how many boxes of ornaments she has; she has more ornaments than tree. One year she decorated two trees in an effort to use them all. The attic used to be stuffed full of decorations, but now that she is older, she had a shed built out back to house everything.

Here is a pic of a gingerbread house we made one year:

Here’s a nice vintage one from when the gatherings were bigger. That’s my aunt with the guitar and me down front, and my great grandmother with a death grip on my arm:

Maybe my mom is taking the picture cause she’s not in it.

Here’s a neat one of my family and my dad's parents. Not quite Christmas, but near it.

This next one I am including cause I think it’s great and I know you like the vintage stuff. This was boarding the plane to my first trip to Disneyland. Check out those duds, and the way my mom dressed me:

Happy camper.  Mom, me, Sis & Aunt

#FB00192