Here is wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas from Oklahoma.
Category Archives: Christmas
Ruby Tuesday 2- First Christmas
It’s Christmas Eve!!
Fourteen Years ago SuperPizzaBoy thought Christmas was pretty cool. (He still does!)
Such balance!!
From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!!
Christmas – The Home Stretch
(Sweeties delicious gluten free Gingerbread Men)
The Christmas Season is heating up just a few more days.
(Large balls that came rolling down the street during a windstorm.)
And the big day will be here. The preachers have been preaching to us to slow down, pause, reflect. Doesn’t seem like anybody ever does it.
(One of many building Christmas Trees in downtown Tulsa)
Hustle and Bustle, get this, get that, do this, do that. Drives me crazy, although I don’t have to do any of that. Sweetie bears the brunt of Christmas in hour house. Hats off to her. She does a great job but it is exhausting.
(Christmas Tree at SPB’s school)
Christmas is many different things to many different people. It’s a Christian holiday to be sure but other faiths join in also. Personally I think there is room for everybody at Christmas.
(SuperPizzaBoy, Gramps, and Brother Bob at Philbrook Museum during Thanksgiving.)
One big thing for me is a rest time. I love taking time off and spending it with the family. Especially this year. The energy industry is going berserk. Sometimes I just cannot believe the amount of money being spent. Billions of dollars in high stakes investments. It is paying off though. The USA is on its way to being a net energy exporter. In the natural gas industry there is genuine excitement with the producing companies I deal with. The technology they are applying to locating where to drill, the drilling process, and especially the fracturing and completion of the wells is awesome. It is also very expensive. Some areas about $12 million dollars per well. We are dealing with producers who have “pilot projects” involving 50 wells, 600 Million dollars.
Sorry, I’ll get back to Christmas. I am looking forward to resting for a week or so. Then it is back at it. Exciting times, but stressful also.
(Oklahoma City’s Bricktown Christmas Tree, Devon’s new $760 million building in the background)
I love Christmas even though I am the only person in the world who doesn’t understand what the “Spirit of Christmas” is. I am also puzzled but the abrupt end. We spend two months gearing up for it and then it is like a car driving a 100 miles per hour that hits a bridge abutment. Its the sudden stop that gets me. It takes me me while to gear up and just when I’m really into it is over with. Yeah we may leave the tree up for a few days but now we gotta get ready for New Years Day, the ball dropping, the Rose Bowl parade and football. Whatever happened to the twelve days of Christmas?
Merry Christmas from Yogi, Sweetie, and SuperPizzaBoy!
Many bloggers quit during the Christmas season. I am not one of them. I’ll be at it every day probably. But if I don’t see you have a great Christmas, or Holiday Season as you prefer.
Christmas on Automobile Alley
I am in Oklahoma City on business for a day or two. Usually I just buzz down the turnpike and back but not this time. My hotel is in the downtown area so I was looking forward to checking in and doing either some night time geocaching or photography. I got off the freeway exit and turned down Broadway to make my to my hotel when I saw buildings ablaze with light.
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It was flat amazing. Each building was decorated with a single color of lights. So xnay on the old geocaching plan, (although I think they do have geocaches). I walked up and down and over across the streets taking pictures.
This section of Broadway north of downtown is called “Automobile Alley” because way back when in the early 20th century that is where most of Oklahoma City’s Automobile Dealers were here. It is not redone and gentrified with cool restaurants and shops.
I remember reading about these lights on my favorite Oklahoma Blog JenX67. She wrote about the lights here and here. I go to Oklahoma City quite often but usually during the day and with somebody. My coworkers are very patient with me but I don’t take them on too many wild photography and geocaching adventures.
This store is just off Automobile Alley but they have upped the ante.
But nothing like the building right next to it. I’d hate to pay their electric bill. But I love the wild zaniness of the lights.
It was getting kind of late. I spotted this nice wine merchant. I went inside and spotted a nice Oyster Bay Pinot Noir and then I went back across the street to Hideaway Pizza and had their BBQ Chicken. Superb!!
Have you seen any good Christmas lights lately?
Automobile Alley Signs
Christmas 2011
Yogi here with a Christmas report from Oklahoma
It was dry, sunny, and warm!! You can have your White Christmases, you really can. For me I like the warm sun.
Christmas Eve we spent at Nana’s house. Here is mother and daughter. I like that dynamic flip in Sweetie’s hair.
We brought our three mutts to mix and mingle with Nana’s two mutts. It was mutt mania Christmas Eve especially when Sweetie broke out the treats.
After an excellent meal of tacos and tamales courtesy of Nana and a nice long relaxed visit, we went home and watched “A Christmas Story” in our jammies. SuperPizzaBoy loves that movie and laughs hard. It’s fun watching him. Sorry, no pj photos folks. I don’t think SuperPizzaBoy would mind, Sweetie would. Anyway, after the movie he went off to bed and then Santa came (wink, wink, to all the parents out there). Santa ate the two gingerbread cookies and was nice enough to leave a note.
Next morning, coffee and more gingerbread cookies. I know I said no pj pcs, but you know I lie a lot. You can tell when I’m lying. If my lips are moving, I’m lying.
Nana and I showing off our favorite gifts, hand knitted scarves from Sweetie.
Ginger, got a hedgehog. Notice the wild eyed neurotic look. The hedgehog never did give her any milk, and Ginger tried all day long.
Nana gave me two cameras, a special fisheye film camera on the right, and an old Kodak Brownie on the right. She gave me some 120 film for the Brownie, the shutter worked, I cleaned up the lens as best I could and snapped a few pics outside. If I can find a place to process the film, and if there are pics halfway presentable I’ll share them. The fisheye camera will be interesting I know the flash is powerful. I took a pic of Sweetie and she reeled. I think I could stop the Russian Army with the flash. It is powerful.
Sweetie worked hard preparing a variety of tasty dishes, I smoked some chicken quarters and a turkey breast and we ate very well. We had a coworker of mine who joined us. It’s always nice to have somebody join our foursome.
We missed being with the rest of my family who gathered at my Sister’s house in Colorado Springs.
And now, the dishes are picked up and cleaned up and we are resting.
I hope that you and your family had a great Christmas!
From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.
(Emily Matthews)
Merry Christmas from the Yogi’s to you!
(Yogi, SuperPizzaBoy, Sweetie, and Nana)
Weekend Reflections – Christmas
Christmas is many different things to many different people. A big part of Christmas is light and what makes light fun are reflections.
Christmas tree in downtown’s beautiful art deco Philcade Building.
Even lawyers love Christmas.
Reflections while putting the lights on at our house.
Wreaths at a florists window.
Decorations at Pier One.
Hey, if I don’t see you before then have a Merry Christmas!
It’s Christmas, 1980’s Oklahoma style.
My favorite Christmas decorations are nativity scenes. The stores are loaded with them. All sorts of styles to choose from.
We have several in our house. Sweetie does a great job with them.
This one below is special to me. It is not the fanciest one we have.
I got it in 1986 right after I moved to Oklahoma City from Dallas. In those days before the internet and Amazon.com you ordered novelty merchandise out of catalogs. Remember all the catalogs from those days? Lands End, and Eddie Bauer were just the beginning. Anyway my secretary, whom I’ll call Frances, was the catalog queen in the office. She’d find something cool and several people would order it. Anyway she found this nativity scene and several of us in the office ordered one. I don’t know why I did, I was single and didn’t decorate for Christmas but I liked it.
Lake Hefner (Copyright © 2010 by Laura Anne Heller used by Creative Commons License on Flickr)
A subsequent summer Frances drowned after falling off a sailboat during a midnight cruise on Lake Hefner with her new boyfriend. She wasn’t wearing a life jacket and didn’t know how to swim. It being at night the guy couldn’t see her and a sailboat is not the most maneuverable thing around. They didn’t find her body until the sun came up the subsequent morning.
It was a real mess. She had left her long time boyfriend of many years a few weeks before. But he was still the beneficiary of her life insurance, 401K, all that stuff. It was a real heart breaker. He got it all and he kept it all and I dealt with both him and her family through the whole process. It was a sad and stressful time, for a long time, for everybody who knew her.
We were kind of a tight knit little group and the loss and chaos afterward hit us hard. This was in the midst of the mid 1980’s oil bust that knocked all of Oklahoma for a loop. It seemed that things were never going to get better but eventually of course they did.
Christmas is many things to many people and to me a big part of it is remembering Christmases past especially people who are gone. I always think of Frances at Christmas and how things often don’t turn out the way we plan and that life is fragile. I also learned that people are resilient and although they may never forget something somehow they get through it.
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 NIV)
And of course I learned that you need to keep your beneficiaries current on your life insurance, 401K’s, and such to help out the people you leave behind because you really don’t know when something is going to happen to you.
I’m linking up with That’s Baloney today for her perfect pairing day.
Hey it’s Christmas
It’s Christmastime at the Yogi’s. We got the tree down and put it up. It’s all prewired which is wonderful. As long as it works. Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy are in charge of decorating the tree except for the most important ornament.
It goes up first. For some years now I’ve wanted it to be at the top of the tree. Lots of people put stars at the top. In fact I put it up there and down it goes. Sweetie has a very nice angel that goes on top instead of the star.
Sweetie’s angel is very nice but what do you think of my angels? You can tell that they like stars. They got them all over their outfits. I bet they would vote to put the star on top of the tree.
Actually, you know how women team up. I think they would vote with Sweetie.
Sweetie has lots of ornaments that remind of Christmas’s past. This is SuperPizzaBoy way back when.
Now look at him!
We also have an ornament with Sweetie’s Dad, “Boompa.” This will be the fifth Christmas without him. We all miss him very much. Nobody loved Christmas more than Boompa.
Sweetie loves snowmen. We have lots of them, especially in sets of three. Its kind of a symbol of our family.
Except, the littlest snowman is going to be bigger than the other two here anytime.
Anyways, its Christmas and you know the rule. As far as I’m concerned though, I wish the person holding the sign would read it herself. Just saying.
Not everybody is so happy about Christmas as we are.
I hope that everybody has a great Christmas!
Philbrook Museum Festival of the Trees
Tuesday I met Sweetie and world’s best MIL, Nana at the Philbrook Museum here in Tulsa to check out their Festival of Trees. Also it is Nana’s birthday! This is from last year, darn me I don’t have a picture of them together since then. Take it from me, they both get better looking ever year.
The Festival of the Trees is all about Christmas. So of course they had a Santa.
And all sorts of trees made by local individuals, classes, and other groups. You can buy these works of art.
If I had a cabin in the woods, I would want this tree for that. It needs a little color though. I’m thinking some red strands of some sorts.
This was my favorite tree. I loved it.
Nana liked this one. Of course she is decorating for a tropical Christmas this year.
This is what she has in her living room. You should see what her tree is.
I liked this frame full of balls.
This I found plain disturbing. I’m going to have nightmares.
I think this is the Blair Witch Project tree. That is also very disturbing.
I don’t find this disturbing at all.
They had gingerbread houses also. I loved this little red school house. I reserve the right to repost for Ruby Tuesday, anybody mind?
This was the most joyous house. I love how they glued the kids faces to each of the cookies. Or maybe, maybe that might be a little disturbing also. What do you think?
A “Cars” themed post. Love it, love it, love it. Second best movie ever made.
And for you Christmas lovers from the People’s Republic of Kansas. A special “OZ” gingerbread house. I love the ruby slippers underneath the house.
And Hogwarts, I love Harry Potter. Those movies are all tied for about 6th on the alltime best movie list.
And this was my favorite gingerbread house of all. I like how it is at an angle and whopperjawed and all that. Whopperjawed is an Oklahoma technical term. I have a lot of readers from Canada and Great Britain who need some translation sometimes.
Anyway, we looked around and then I had to leave. Helping America solve her energy problems and all that you know.