An After-Christmas Gift for Your Hump Day

Happy Hump Day

I mentioned last week that I was going to do something a little different this week. Before we get to your hump day funnies, I want to share a little something from my Christmas.

As far back as I can remember - and that goes pretty far back - we always had tinsel (or icicles) on our Christmas tree. It was the only decoration that we considered 'disposable'.  The last thing to go on and the first to come off, and be thrown away, before all the other ornaments were packed away for next year.

But a few years back, when it was time to decorate our tree, I discovered most stores had stopped selling tinsel. No one we talked to was quite sure why. Probably a health hazard of some kind, another one of those things I've used or done for most of my life that has now been deemed unsafe. So there would be no tinsel on our tree. There would be a lot more ornaments, though. That was the first Christmas after my dear mum-in-law had passed and we had brought her Christmas ornaments home to add to our own.

Not surprisingly, all of Mama's ornaments were very old and very well cared for. Most were still in their original boxes. But there was also something wrapped in several sheets of tissue paper. I carefully unfolded the paper and discovered...tinsel. About two boxes worth, I guessed, each strand carefully laid out and saved from previous years.

We used Mama's tinsel that year, and saved it for the next. I've since found a store that still sells tinsel and I bought several boxes but they remain unopened  For now I use Mama's, and I take the time to remove each strand after Christmas and return it to the tissue paper wrapping for next year. It reminds me of her, and it also reminds me of how easily we throw things away. We've become a disposable society. It's easier to discard what's old or broken or would take too much effort to save. Things, relationships, people. 

Mama knew it's important to save what we have. To care for, repair, and cherish. She left this knowledge for us, wrapped in tissue paper. to be opened and remembered every year. I thought it was a gift worth sharing with you.


And since it's hump day, here are a couple funnies for you.

Yeah, you knew he was gonna do it.

I read that no word in the English language rhymes with month , orange, silver, or purple.

You're trying to think of words that rhyme with these, aren't you?

Does anyone else find it odd that three of these words are colors? 

Here's an interesting sign.

Oops, you just did, didn't you?

That's okay, here's another one.

Okay, enough of this nonsense, let's get to this week's "aw".

Here's something a little different.

You liked the loving squirrels a couple weeks ago. How about a pair of loving owls?

Yes?

Okay, I hope you're over the mid week hump and good to go for the weekend. 

And just for my own curiousity - does anyone else still use tinsel on their Christmas tree?

 

 See you next week.

Quote for Today:

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense."    ~ Mark Twain 

Because You Never Know...

I started taking down our Christmas tree last night.  Yes, I know, I'm late.  I just wasn't in the mood on New Year's Day and it hasn't felt like an urgent need.  But I'm getting around to it now.

Un-decorating a tree is sort of like that accounting term, LIFO (last in, first out).  The last decorations to go on the tree have to come off first.  For us, that's always been the tinsel.

As far back as I can remember, tinsel was considered a disposable decoration.  Before Christmas, you bought a box or two of the very inexpensive thin silvery strips; had the usual argument over tossing handfuls at the tree versus carefully placing it one strip at a time; then, when the holiday was over, pulled off the tinsel and dropped the tangled mess in the trash before carefully removing the "real" decorations and packing them away for next year.

Until a couple years ago... when I went out to buy tinsel and couldn't find any.  No one was stocking it.  No one seems to know why.  Had it fallen out of favor with the younger crowd?  Been declared a health risk?  Could only be imported from some country we'd stopped speaking to?  No answer.  So we decorated the tree without tinsel that year, and it never seemed quite finished to me.

Some of you may remember, we lost my dear mum-in-law, Eleanora, in the fall of 2010.  Mama was a woman who had known real hardship and she never took having anything for granted. She was the lady who washed and re-used aluminum foil, saved the wrapping paper off gifts she received, and usually tucked away the gift for "someday". 

As her only family, everything that was hers came to us.  This included her Christmas decorations, most of which she'd not put up in years.  Last Christmas, we divided the fragile glass ornaments between our home and her grandchildrens', so everyone could have memories of her on their tree.  Then we found a long, thin, soft, wrapping of tissue paper.  Inside, carefully laid out so it wouldn't tangle, was a lovely pile of tinsel.  Mama hadn't bought a new box every year like the rest of us.  As always, she saved what she had and used it again. 

So that's what we did.  Last year, Mama's tinsel graced our tree, and was carefully packed away again when Christmas was over.  And it was Mama's tinsel I was carefully removing last night.

Eleanora Leszczuk knew that you took care of what you had, instead of blinding assuming there would always be more. 

She was a very smart lady, don't you think?


Groaner of the Day:  A man rushes into a vet's office, carrying the limp and lifeless body of his beloved pet gopher.

The vet takes the animal and puts it on an examination table.  After examining the limp form, the doctor tells the man that his pet, regrettably is dead.

The man, clearly upset and not willing to accept the obvious, demands a second opinion. So the vet goes into the back room and comes out with a Black Labrador.

The dog sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the Lab thinks he's is dead too."

The man is still unwilling to accept that his beloved pet is dead. So the vet brings in a Siamese cat and puts the cat down next to the gopher's body.

The Siamese sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, poking and sniffing the gopher's body and finally looks at the vet and meows. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the Siamese thinks he's dead, too."

The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes. The vet answers,

$650.00."

"$650.00 just to tell me that he's dead?!" exclaims the man.

"Well," the vet replies, "I would only have charged you $50.00 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600.00 was for the Cat Scan and the Lab Tests."

(ouch)