Tree Down - February 2012

It's finally down! All you can see here are the tree skirt and tree stand. In 2011 the tree came down on February 27th. I'm ahead by five whole days!

Christmas 2011: Sam and Pete

Lights Off - February 2012

The lights finally came off tonight. All that's left is the tree! Pictured above are the lights on a neighbor's trees.

Ornaments off the Tree - February 2012

Last year I had the ornaments off the tree by January 30. This year they're all off by today, Groundhog Day. The tree itself didn't come down last year until Feb. 27. Let's see if I can beat that this year.

West German Paper Mache Christmas Ball

When I was a kid, my Aunt Paula gave us a paper mache Christmas ball from West Germany exactly like the one pictured above when I was a kid. I found this one at an antique store recently and decided to buy it.

Christmas Eve 1968 - The Minneapolis Tribune

I obtained a facsimile of the 1968 Christmas Eve edition of the old Minneapolis Tribune at an exhibit at the Minnesota History Center. The exhibit was 1968 and covered a lot of the events that happened during that turbulent year in American history. It was fun to see what the headlines were. Mom and Dad and I were living in Minneapolis near the old Fairview and St. Mary's hospitals.

Christmas Season 2011 - Twelfth Night 2012

I did a little research online today and found out the following:

"Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas."

"It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as 'the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking.' However, there is currently some confusion as to which night is Twelfth Night: some count the night of Epiphany itself (sixth of January) to be Twelfth Night. One source of this confusion is the Medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset, so that Twelfth Night precedes Twelfth Day."

Well, tonight is the eve of January 6th so we'll follow the Medieval custom and call this Twelfth Night.

Dale and I celebrated with drinks, steaks and chocolate cake (and Downton Abbey too). It was all very lovely.