Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Gotta Go Get Christmas Hugs

I'll be gone for a while.  I have to to north to collect my Christmas hugs.  I have not seen my family since last Christmas . It tears at my heartstrings so you can imagine how overjoyed I am to be with them all for a few days. 

I am gladly trading  my  50 - 60 degree temps for teens and single digits.   I will have lots of love to keep me warm.   (After I wrote that I saw on  one daughter's Facebook page that it is 50 there too.  Yay!  I don't want to drive in a blizzard!) 



                                          Merry Christmas and have a very Happy New Year

Christmas Trees in My Life


             These trees are from 1955 and 1956.  I was  5-6 years old and my sister was 3-4 at the time.


 This one was 1955.  That means my mother was only 25 years old and Dad was 28.   My parents had moved to Michigan from Missouri so there were no big family gatherings for us.  My mother was only 18 when she came north.  I asked her once, not that many years ago,  "wasn't that difficult?"  She kind of shrugged and said, "That's just the way it was."    I think she must have some to terms with it all ago.

1956
These trees were real.  They were tall and thin or short and fat.  They smelled like pine.  We put up the tree about two weeks before Christmas and we always opened gifts on Christmas Eve night.  My father was a 2nd shift worker for GM and did not want to get up in the wee hours with 2, and soon to be, three children.  I never had a traditional Christmas morning until I had daughter # 1.


Move ahead now to 1967.  I was a Senior in High School.  You can faintly see that same small rope of silver tinsel.  I think the curtains are still from the 50s as well.  This as a particularly festive year with  a construction paper chain hanging from the ceiling.   That TV is the one my brother shot with a BB gun when he was about 8.  Oops!  It was resting on his lap and he pulled the trigger.  It left a ping ricocheted bullseye about the size of a quarter.   We lived with it another 10 years.

On into the 70's we had some pretty regular trees.  Nothing much different than these.  I don't know what struck me senseless in the 80s when I thought these trees should come home with me.



There is nothing redeeming about this tree.  We continued with the family tradition of random strings of tinsel and the hanging icicle kind.  You can see clusters of bulbs hanging at 3 year old level.  Holy cow that thing is ugly. 

It was in this house that I discovered Clair Burke's  Applejack & Peel  fragrance candles and potpouri.  It's almost impossible to find now.  I had to order some on line.  It just smells like Christmas to me.



This is no better.  There appears to be two large sections out of each side of the top.  Even that stategically placed red tinsel  and the 5 link construction paper chain, cannot distract your eyes from this poor sad thing.  Somewhere around this time frame, no one wanted to go on the wagon ride and slug through the snow in boots and heavy coats.  What this Mother thought was making memories was not being appreciated by my young crowd. 

After the tree mutiny,  Terry and I would go get a cut tree and wrestle that thing into the holder and then into the house. 

We moved to  South Carolina from this house and then returned a couple of years later.  We still had live trees and the girls helped put on the decorations.  When I was a Mall rat, they would often put it up by themselves and I loved that even more.  No, I can tell you what I loved the most.  I always had to work the day after Christmas and they would take all the decorations down and it would be all put away by the time I got home.  That was such a gift.

I was a little late coming the fake tree decision.  I fought it but it really is easier. 


I burned Yankee Christmas candles so there was the fragrance of pine in the air, along with the Applejack & Peel.   We lived in this house for 8 years and I kept that green living room and burgundy furniture all that time.  Only the gifts changed.  The tree stayed the same. 

I miss those poor sad trees.  My daughters don't talk about that fake tree.  They remember the live ones.  The lopsided, needle shedding,  living room engulfing real trees.   You need to experience walkng across the carpet in July and getting stabbed by an errant pine needle.  Try as they might, there is no candle that really has that Christmas tree smell.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Old Songs Time

I was reading a book the other day that mentioned the male character's favorite romantic song was "These Arms of Mine".    I couldn't get interested in the rest of the book so I only read about 25 pages and returned it to the library.  But that song... that song has stayed with me.  I remember dancing in the gym after football games to that song.  It is indeed a romantic one.  (Frankly, who I danced with is not in my memory bank any longer, but the song stayed.  We know what I valued don't we?)


Being the music person that I am, that got me thinking about songs in movies that just made the movie, for me, such a great "chick" thing and I am not offended my calling a movie that.

I mean, really, how many times have we watched Dirty Dancing?   Seriously?  It wasn't for the profound dialogue.  "Nobody puts Baby in a corner/"   No, it was for the dancing and this.



Big sigh.  Now if those guys I was dancing with at those school dances, back in the 60s, were dancing like Patrick here, I would darn well have remembered their names, but, believe me, no one I knew danced like that!   Lordy, Lordy! 

I was swept away by this song too.   Way back in the 80's was long before Tom jumped on Oprah's couch.   Living beside the Navy/Marine  Cherry Point Air Station,  I now have the newer models of these jets and more flying over my house.  I think there may be a Pete Maverick or two up there.


This woman is a heck of an actress because years later I learned she's gay so while I was thinking she was one lucky lady she was probably thinking about lunch. 

These are songs of romance.  I'm sure there are singers and songs and movies now that are just as romantic.  I still watch the chick flicks of today and nothing really stands out to me.  Maybe that's part of all the remakes now.  They are trying to recreate the magic again.  Some things are better left alone.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Misheard Lyrics

There is a commercial on now that shows 2 people in a car singing along with Elton John to "Rocket man".  They don't know the lyrics and are just throwing out anything that may fit.  It reminded me of all the songs that I have messed up and lyrics that others thought they knew but didn't.  I once did this as a game with a bunch of girlfriends to see if they could guess the song that went with the lyrics.  I won't make you guess.  I'll tell you which song and which lyrics were messed up.

Rocket Man's "Rocket Man....burning out his fuse up here alone" becomes "Burning off the trees on every lawn" or "Burnin up loose on everyone", just to name a couple.   My favorite Elton John mix up is "Won't you dance with me Tony Danza?"


1.  One of the most common ones is the Jimi Hendrix "scuse me while I kiss this guy"......instead of "touch the sky",

2.  Creedance Clearwater Eevival's "There's a bathroom on the right"  for Bad Moon Rising.

3. The Rolling Stones " I don't want to be your Beast of Burden' has become " I don't want to be your pizza furncace" or "Don't look at me, your pizza's burning, " or" I'll never  be your big suburban."

4.  The Beach Boys "California Girls"  "The west coast has the sunshine and the girls all get so tan" becomes "The girls are tinsel thin"...( Now they are, that's for sure)  

5.  In "Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys that girl with the T-Bird has lost her T-bag, T-shirt, TV and Dad's taken her to a wake, instead of  "takes her T-bird away".

6.  Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams"  line "Thunder only happens when it's raining" can't get screwed up can it?  Oh, yeah.....Thunder on Campus when it's raining,  

The original line "Say women, they will come and they will go.  When the rain washes you clean, you'll know"  has been  "When the rain washes, you'll clean your nose."

Tell me Lies has become "sell me fries".   

I may not have made all of these mistakes, but I've sang my heart out, in my car all alone. Don't judge.  I know you've done it too.  Then kinda of smiled at yourself at how bad you messed it up.  But, there are no witnesses so.....you keep on singing.   I know I am not alone here.

I love the oldies and sometimes I only think I know all the words.  Terry and I once and I do mean once, tried to karaoke to The Mamas and the Papas "California Dreamin. "  Have you seen the lyrics to that song.  I swear there are whole stanzas I had never heard.  I know they played a whole new version for us. 

So the next time you are out driving and you seen a lone woman in a car singing away, it may be me. 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Time For Some Stress Relief

Many of you have seen or heard this song because I see that it is a year old.  I just received it in an e mail yesterday and thought is was worth passing on in my blog world.  Christmas is a time that leaves me feeling so frazzled.  We will be leaving for Michigan about a week before Christmas so I have to have everything done by then.  I feel the pressure.


( I still had to be careful and not show half the wall with "surprises " lined up against it.)

 I was grateful for the reminder that just because my living room looks like Santa's workshop exploded in there with gifts and wrapping paper and boxes and tissue all about,  that is not what the season is all about. 

This is:  The story I got with the email is that a child saw the very long line of people waiting to see Santa so he then asked, "Where's the Line for Jesus?"  


The most important thing this holiday is to remember the reason for the season.  And to hug my girls and boys.


This is my all time favorite Christmas carol.   After years in retail where I got so tired of hearing them from November 1st on, sadly, I still cannot enjoy it like I once did.  But this still touches me.


I enjoy the Celtic Women.  I hope you like this little break too. 

Saturday, December 3, 2011

All I Want For Christmas.....

I have to say, before I moved south, this was one of my favorite "new" Christmas songs.  When I was looking at freezing rain, sleet and snow, this sounded very good indeed.


I haven't been to the Caribbean Islands in two years and I am missing the pretty turquoise water. Living on the coast here, is not the same.   I would love to, one day, meet my daughter's and families for a Caribbean Christmas. 

So sit back and enjoy this Christmas song that shows a different view of how to celebrate.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Hair Day

Just got home from getting my hair cut.  Did the same thing yesterday too.   Women and our hair stylists are a make it or break it kind of relationship.   I had been going to the same stylist for a couple of years.  I found her when we first moved here, to North Carolina and when she opened her own shop, I followed her.   So, that makes well over 2 years I have invested in hair care.

  I'm not one to wear the same style forever, unlike my mother, who had the same style as long as I can remember. She got her hair "done" on Monday and it was wrapped and protected   A brush never touched it until the next Monday.  I know, I can't imagine that either, but that's what they did years ago, and for 30 years afterwards apparently.    I've shown photos of me and my hair from the long to the short of it.  For a while in the 1970's I thought I was a young black woman and sported an afro, as you can see.

In the last 4 or 5 years, I've gone a little Sharon ... and no, mine is not red.  That would take a lot of maintenance.  It used to be dark brown and now it is mostly gray, which happened a year ago.  It didn't suddenly turn gray a year ago.  No, that started happening when I was in high school.  Thanks Dad.  I just got tired of coloring it a year ago.  I'm coming to terms with it.  Big sigh.........


At first all was well, but slowly, my stylist kept cutting it shorter and shorter and all I was left with was 6 hairs glued to my cheeks, bangs like a 3rd grader,  and no fullness.  I realized where this was headed.

Google photos

Remember Susan Powter?  "Stop the Insanity" ???     So I stopped.... I canceled my appointment with my now "former" stylist, a month ago, ( had to have more time for it to grow)  and went back to the shop where I had found her.  That's where I found 21 year old Samantha.   I explained my dilema and told her to error on the side of too long rather than too short.  I showed her this picture of Sharon and she still left it a little long so that it didn't spike, it split.  That's OK.  That's fixable.  So, that's what she did today.  

I stopped in at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and the pharmacist said, " Wow, your hair is really getting long!"   So I guess Samantha got it right.
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