It's Christmas Morning, Do You See What I See?

I never did chestnuts over the open fire but Brazil nuts were definitely a thing. It what follows I'm about to play a little game of Christmas morning “I spy,” as a special Christmas post mostly aimed at fun while you sip your coco, your coffee, or whatever yuletide beverage you choose in front of a crackling fireplace or the melodic sounds of Fireplace for Your Home because you don't have a fireplace anymore or at all. But it's going to be a visual and interesting adventure so I invite you to come along with me for that. 

The first thing I see in this picture is the ashtray that my sister and I are using to put the nut shells in, I suppose if you're going to use an ashtray you might as well be multifunctional with it right? Both of my parents were smokers for a really long time, so I don't think I would have thought twice about this then but it's the first thing I noticed now because it's so out of place. Everything looks mostly quaint and peaceful. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, I can't say I remember too clearly for that specific Christmas morning (or frankly if that was even Christmas morning). It looks maybe a little bit too, not like, a wrapping paper confetti bomb went off to actually be Christmas morning. 

I see that both of my sisters are actually represented in this photograph. I see that there are four stockings not hung over the fireplace, though they probably were before the fire was started, and that one of those four stockings was for the cat. And, maybe there's a fifth stocking a little out of reach, for the other cat who would probably just assume climb up on the mantle to go get the catnip inside (assuming there was catnip inside). Not long ago I was asked what my standard stocking stuffers would be, at this juncture in life I looked forward to canned clams, canned oysters, and a roll of Gouda cheese. That was high-life living to me. This was well before I had tasted coastal oysters, so nobody needs to give me a hard time about liking that, also as you can see from the photo I'm not even 10. 

I spy the manger set by the VHS tapes (those are videos for the kids out there). In case you're wondering, real life potted plants and VHS tapes don't mix very well on Christmas morning or otherwise. Of course, I see the Christmas morning Easter egg of WrestleMania IV and its dual VHS reminding me why I love the art of professional wrestling. As a librarian, I'm surprised more of us aren't fans because of storytelling alone. I see the real fireplace crackling behind me, and I think about how my dad missed the boat on Fireplace for Your Home because he used to actually record that fireplace with music in the background in the 1980s long before Netflix was even a thing. Oh, how life could have been different. 

I spy all of the potpourri and incense along the fireplace mantle probably designed to drown out the smell of Salem Ultras in the house. Although, I don't ever really remember us using those oil lamps, I think that's probably a holdover from when my mom lived in the house. This was definitely a post divorce photo. 

As I peruse the ornaments on the Christmas tree, I'm wondering if we'd switched to the fake tree just yet, which wound up becoming my project because I managed to figure out the puzzle of how to put it together correctly after putting it together incorrectly a few times and having to redo it. I also remember that putting the real trees in the Christmas tree stand was never a fun process. There was usually yelling and then crying and then more yelling. So even though Jesus is on the Christmas tree skirt I was probably bound to hear at least one mother f***** or two around the Yuletide. Side note, it's a little bit ironic to have Jesus on a Christmas tree skirt considering the Christmas tree was a pagan ritual for sacrifice if you believe the myth, but hey I digress and now I'm going to get cooked for that one. I'm just having fun, no worries. 

Back to the Christmas tree, as I look at all the very familiar-to-me ornaments on the tree, I remember year-after-year, taking the really busted ass JCPenney box (are they still around by the way?) out of storage to take out the ornaments, sort them out, and pick out which ones I wanted to put out of the reach of the cats and which ones I wanted to put in reach of the cats because why the hell not? 

There's this little gray and white blob behind my right heel underneath the Christmas tree that is probably just a shadow but makes me think it's one of the cats that I am amazed I would have had bare ankles around because well they would have been scratched bare ankles. In any event, I see two nutcrackers assisting my sister and I over the bowl of fresh nuts, and I think to myself it's probably because there was no way we were going to share one, and somebody was going to get a finger pinched if we did. We probably got fingers pinched anyway. And then I think there is no way, in present-day anything, that my own children would be sitting over a bowl of fresh nuts cracking them and enjoying them at will, and I chuckle. 

If you're trying to place the era and thinking 1980 something due to the decor in the room, it looked like that until the mid-2000s so good luck. I can tell you based on my age and maybe a few other factors that we were edging close to late '80s almost 1990. And, WrestleMania IV came out in 1988 so there's that. If you're thinking what I'm thinking when you look at the TV, which is how thankful you are that TVs today are like 5 lbs and don't look like that, we're in agreement. Thank you to the people who decided TVs should be paper thin and movable by one human being instead of a forklift. I'm pretty sure that TV is still in that room even though that house isn't. 

This post has no real purpose except to entertain you, have some fun, and wish you some holiday cheer on your Christmas morning as you're sipping your Yuletide beverage of choice and scrolling the internet while you avoid whatever company you keep because like myself you're like “oh, here we are, it's today.” Or maybe you're reading this because I told you I was going to post it and it's the only reason you got on the internet today. Either way, I wish you a happy, healthy, safe, joyful, and minimally eventful holiday. No, I'm not avoiding saying Merry Christmas for any particular reason. I just say holiday because it's what I do. Depending on when you're reading this, I'm probably drinking coffee, usually a safe bet, and trying to survive a much more modern version of the holiday season.