Category Archives: Christmas

Christmas 2020

Christmas this year was a quiet affair. Just us and my mother-in-law. We talked several times with my brother who is in long term care here in Tulsa. (We are all excited, he has recovered enough to where he will be going to an assisted living facility sometime early next month.)

We grilled steaks for dinner along with mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus, and crusty bread.

Here’s son working away at his video games. That is what he does.

I hate photos of myself. The force was not with me photography wise. I couldn’t get the white balance or anything else right. That is what makes me a picture taker and not a photographer.

This was desert. There is a bunch less of these now than there was 24 hours ago.

Lizzie and LJ looked on with detachment. They got toys though which they promptly push underneath furniture. The dogs didn’t get new toys. They only like them a little bit and then ignore so we brought out last year’s toys and that made them happy.

At this age our gift giving is kind of simple. We buy whatever Logan wants which really isn’t too much. A few days Heather and I went to Best Buy and got an Apple Watch for her and this fancy Garmin sports watch for me. Both watches have pulse oximeters so they tell us what our blood oxygen levels are. It’s got a bunch of other gizmos on it.

So after a bit, we took my mother-in-law home and we sat down and watched Christmas Story. Logan’s favorite movie on this day.

So we were blessed. We have our health, my brother is getting better, we enjoyed each others company.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a great Christmas as well.

It’s Getting to be Christmas

Well we are running behind schedule on Christmas this year. This is the tree. Heather put on the Topper just to keep me from putting on the Dallas Cowboy Star. I strung the lights. Oh well, we have a lot going on in our family right now. Believe me. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you about it. Buy me three or four and you will hear all of it but you will have to drive me home.

Oh well, what keeps it fun is that Lizzie the kitten is enjoying the dickens out of Christmas.

And at work, the Large Projects Group that I work in has a tree. It was a woman engineer that raised the cash from us deadbeat men engineers and bought ornaments and the tree. I think she did a great job. I love all the construction equipment ornaments.

On a cold windy day last week I went for some noon time geocaching out on this remote lake. I froze my butt off and didn’t find the cache but I loved the hunt. In case you need to dispose of a body, I found a couple really good spots!!

Son Logan is working at a Neighborhood Walmart these days. He is proud of his job and seems to be doing well. We went by there the other day (he wasn’t working) to get a few things and then all the customers were ordered to evacuate immediately, so we did. And I fulfilled my blogger journalistic duty by taking a photo of the fire engine and fulfilled my artistic duty by using prisma to pretty it up a little bit. I don’t think there was any property damage nor was anybody hurt.

So that is what is new with me, what is new with you?

Christmas Eve

This is my favorite Christmas Card this year. A water color set in New Mexico. I grew up in New Mexico and I don’t think there is anything prettier than snow on adobe. Throw in a traditional blue door and a ristra of red chilis and it is perfect as far as I am concerned. Check out the artist, Terry Clark, on his blog Coffee With Clark. Artist, Journalism Professor, Journalist, all around great guy, and fellow lover of New Mexico. He is painting and posting lots of New Mexican scenes and commentary this month on a Christmas theme.

I like the quiet moments of Christmas the best. The introspection and remembering years past, especially the loved ones who are no longer around.

Plus, young kids are great at Christmas. They still have the wonder of how it all happened. Plus I like playing with the little kids toys the best. Especially during the afternoon nap.

So unlike Professor Clark I never got around to making cards except I put this together on PicMonkey. So, to those who celebrate the holiday, Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas 2015 – In the Books

Christmas happened this year. Hear you go a rare shot of me in my snuggie.

The kid with his Nana. The kid is getting taller and taller. Is there something we can spray him with to slow him down a little bit.

Heather and Nana, quite a team.

I got a candid shot of Heather. She said she hated it but then she made it her profile pic on facebook. Should I hit her up about royalties?

I captured Nana also.

Before the Christmas meal. We decided to have it more informally this year in the kitchen. Lots less work that way.

My sister Ellen posted this on facebook today. She’s the cute one in the middle. I’m the good looking guy on the right and brother Bob is on the left. I’m guessing mid 1960’s in Price, Utah. We always had a great Christmas. Often we would load up afterward and head up to southern Idaho to see our relatives there. That was fun, or we would head down to Phoenix and see people down there. That was fun also. Bob and Ellen, with her husband Irvin, spent Christmas in Idaho with my dad this year.

She also posted this picture of her three girls. I’m guessing in the 1980’s. Dana is on the left. She and her husband Adam are in Australia visiting his family with their little girl who was born this year. Adam is an Australian citizen you see and their little girl has dual citizenship which I think is totally cool. Jillian in the middle is also visiting my dad, her Grandfather for Christmas in Idaho. Her husband Brian is in the Army serving his country overseas this season. Mary on the right spent Christmas in Colorado Springs with her son this year.

This isn’t a Christmas picture but it is Ellen and her Husband Irvin with Logan back at the turn of the century.

This is also not a Christmas pic but it shows my dad in between Logan and brother Bob.

And this is brother Bob and me with our mother a long time ago in Coyote, New Mexico. She is never far from our thoughts.

Hey you know, when we celebrate Christmas we celebrate it with the critters also. This is abby our sweet but not very smart mutt.

And Rascal, he is sweet and smart. You can see that he has been reading the paper.

And our sweet but perpetually cold mutt Ginger. My niece Dana pictured above lives in the Phoenix area and I think Ginger would like us to move there also.

And Nana’s dog Fiona. She always enjoys visiting us, but is ready to go home when that times comes also.

That was our Christmas this year or at least part of it. I’m big into Christmas not running into a huge stop on Christmas Day so I’m going to go ahead and everybody a Merry Christmas.

Christmas Memories

Digging through the files. This is Logan when he was two. He has always been a Christmas kid.

One year we got me Logan some Thomas the Tank Engine track and cars. I He loved it until ~~Heather took it away from me~~ he outgrew it. Sniff.

At least two out of the three of us can smile.

Boompa and Nana with Logan. Boompa, Charles, was the word’s greatest FIL and a heck of a great guy. He and Logan loved each other and were best friends. He was taken away from us suddenly years ago and we still miss him every day. Boompa loved Christmas and he loved his grandson.

This is my mother, Granny, with Logan when he was about six months or so. Nobody loved her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids like Granny did. She is also gone now.

We are moving forward though making new memories. We are confident that we will meet up with Boompa, Granny, and others again and the memories will be that much sweeter.

For new classic singers can anybody beat Michael Buble?

For great Christian Gospel Hymns check out my friend Driller's Christmas Music Marathon, going on now.

Decorated for Christmas

I love Christmas decorations and Nana, the world’s greatest MIL does it right. This is her tree in the entry way.

This is the tree in the “front room.” I used the Hipstamatic App on my Ipod Touch to make most of these pics. I love low fi photography.

This is her cast iron stove in the entry way. I lovet greenery and the Merry Christmas sign.

And on the upper level of the stove are my wife’s first cowboy boots. Her grandparents owned a ranch and horses in western Oklahoma (that is still in the family btw) and of course she had to have boots. I love seeing these ever year.

This isn’t a Christmas decoration. This is son Logan at my employer’s Children’s Christmas Party when we first moved back to Tulsa a long time ago. I sure miss those days. A big part of Christmas to me is memories and there are lots of great memories and lots of sad memories of people who are no longer with us. Christmas is also a major Christian holiday. Sometimes I think it is just too much for one day, we need to spread it around to several days.

If you celebrate Christmas, how is your Christmas?

Closing out with my very favorite Christmas Song. “Last Christmas” by Wham. I guess that I consider it an old song but it came out in 1984. So it is an oldie.

A Belated White Christmas

Hey we finally got a little bit of snow here in Oklahoma. The kind of snow that I like. It covers the grass and trees but doesn’t stick to the driveways and roadways.

Just enough to get some snow pics but not cause any disruption.

I’m not a big fan of disruption.

It is amazing how fast the snow shovels and sleds appear and mild and bread disappear at grocery stores with the first hint of snow.

I’m doing a transition out of Christmas and into New Years. I’ve even quit using my Christmas coffee mug and started using my New Year’s mug. All I need is a few hours of warm weather so I can take the Christmas decorations down.

Have you started your transition yet?

Christmas Critters 2014

I always have a little bit of a problem with Christmas. I’m kind of slow to get going on the ole Christmas Spirit and then I can’t just stop it on a dime. I kind of have to slowly wind down. So that’s why I’m still posting Christmas after it is over. Today it is our Critters. We include them in our Christmas although the dogs were a little put out because we didn’t get them new toys this year. Heather brought out last years toys and they were not impressed a bit. We did have treats for them.

Do you celebrate Christmas with your animals?

Linking with Saturday’s Critters

If Santa were Truly Magical he would Assemble and not Just Deliver

I don’t get the whole deal with Santa Claus, do you? I mean the little fat dude and his elves somehow to arrange to deliver all sorts of goods from all sorts of places to kids all over the world in just a matter of hours. He is almost as good as Amazon Prime. My question is why can’t he assemble the stuff he delivers? I mean finish the job. I can tell you with Logan over the years I have spent hours putting together bicycles and action figure sets and scouring the internet looking for tips. Cmon Santa, throw us a bone why don’t you?

I’m using my new sports video camera. it takes stills also. I hadn’t disabled the date function yet.

Santa got Logan a new trampoline this year. It is his third. He loves his Indoor trampolines and just wears them out. So Santa keeps bringing him new ones. Well Santa just delivered this big ass heavy box that has been in our garage for a few days. And that’s the end of his responsibility. It is up to me to get the thing moved out back and assembled.

Sorry about my messy garage. Santa doesn’t clean and organize garages either.

Yeah, well I’m an older Dad and we older Dad’s don’t struggle with the box moving it out back. We take the stuff out of the box and move it out back in several trips. That’s not as manly as taking the whole box back but sure is a lot easier.

Nice thing about winter is that grass turns brown and doesn’t grow.

So there it is. Now if Santa was magical, couldn’t he just give me a shazzam to make it all pop together?

The camera has a 170 degree view which gives everything a fisheye effect which works for this kind of shot.

Hey, I got something better than a shazzam, I got Heather back from a shopping trip with Nana. (In case you are wondering Nana financed the trampoline.) Heather immediately regretted not shopping longer as I recruited her into finishing the task.

So with Heather, you just get right to work. No stopping to take pics or anything like that. She is a mom you know. Mom’s don’t put up with Dad’s foolishness too much. Anyway I used my new SJ4000 camera to video Logan and his friend Q jumping and then I handed the camera to Logan to get a view of what the world looks like while you are jumping on the trampoline. It records in HD mode which for nice pics but it takes forever to load them. Sorry about all the fingers and thumbs. I’m still learning.

So, what do you think? Should Santa assemble as well as deliver?

Another Christmas in the Books

Christmas 2014 is winding down. Ours was a low key affair. Just our family of three and Nana, the world’s greatest Mother-In-Law.

We slept in and checked out our Santa gifts and then just chilled out with coffee.

Logan stayed in his pajamas all day. He deserved it. He had a very successful first semester in his new school with amped up academics compared to his old school. So, what the heck. Stay in your pj’s all day Logan.

Nana came over with her two dogs and we exchanged gifts. No big expensive items this year. I got two more cameras. I think have more cameras than anyone I know. One was a sports camera kind of like a Go Pro. Hopefully more on that later. The other is a Fuji Instant Camera kind of like the old Polaroids. It is a hot item among teen age girls and me. It makes very small low fi pics and if you know me, that is right up my alley. Here are a few examples.

We didn’t smoke a turkey. Heather made a breakfast casserole. Lots less fuss. We thought a lot about our family elsewhere. My family was in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Colorado Springs, and Wisconsin. Heather had family in western Oklahoma and north central Texas. We also thought about family members who are not around any longer.

The pets always provide a little comic relief. They always have that look like “what is going on/”

I promise you, somewhere under all the lettuce, and other veggies are some world class enchiladas.

Later in the evening we moved the show to Nana’s house. Heather made New Mexican style flat enchiladas with green chile sauce and of course an egg on top. They are kind of like regular enchiladas except not rolled up and are very good. It was a big treat when I was a kid. And of course they come with a fried egg on top. We finished off the evening with a fierce game of Farkle. I mouth off a lot during such games and enjoy other people trying to get their revenge.

Anyways, this Christmas went pretty well. How was yours? I want to know. Also, have you ever had flat enchiladas?

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