CHRISTMAS TREE TRADITIONS

 The problem with doing traditions with your tree decorating is, naturally, the traditions.  Let me explain.

First, you must know that I keep a spread sheet of every tree decoration we have, going back to the very first one, a homemade string wreath presented to us by our college friends, Tom and Karen O'Connor.  That includes subtracting the ones that I've broken.  Much of what follows was in our 2018 Christmas letter, but I'm old and feel like repeating myself.

Our first tree as a married couple consisted of three dozen balls, twelve each of red, blue, and green.  I've only lost three in our fifty-three years of marriage, although they have faded quite a bit, especially the green which is now a sick yellowish-green.  Never put your ornaments in the attic.  Anyhow, they always go on the tree.  Everything always goes on the tree.

Another tradition is having "name" ornaments for ourselves, children, spouses, grand kids, great-grand kids.  Wasn't so bad for the first twenty-five years.  My tradition is to hang the ornaments loosely resembling a family tree, that is, Marilane and I at the head, a branch or two down are the kids, and so forth.  Well, as babies kept coming, these ornaments started taking up a sizeable portion of the branches.

Another tradition is to pick up an ornament from places we have visited.  We travel a lot, thus have a myriad of ornaments.  I usually place these on the opposite side of the tree from the family, as they take up a considerable amount of tree space.

We have five capiz ornaments, an angel tree-topper, two angels, a cross, and a star.  I spiral the two angels towards the top, although by looking you can't really tell it is a spiral.  There is the Judy Peterson bequest of three Victorian ornaments.  We have twenty-two Waterford ornaments that Marilane would purchase when they went on sale after Christmas.  We have a Bride's Tree Collection, which are a dozen small ornaments and are placed in the upper branches.  We have a Madonna and Child ornament that is always placed front-and-center at eye level.

Several years ago we replaced our twelve-foot tree with a nine-foot.  I would have liked to continue with the twelve, but couldn't find a suitable replacement.  In order to approach (or actually reach) the ceiling, we moved the placement from the vaulted portion next to the stairs to the area of the back door.  The back door was now blocked, but the tree visible to the neighbors.  That meant decorating the whole tree, not just three "sides."  Not a problem, I have 325 ornaments.

Now comes my "complaint."  Due to Covid concerns, we cancelled our Thanksgiving family gettogether with a determination that everyone would be available for Christmas.  Plan A is to eat on the back porch, weather permitting.  We also have a new gas grill.  We take out a mortgage, get prime filets from Central Market, and Chris does a masterful job of grilling them to perfection.  The grill is situated on the back porch, adjacent to the back door.  The tree had to return to the stairs (this also involved wholesale rearranging of furniture).  The crux of the situation: the "back" of the tree was mostly inaccessible, forcing me to crowd the ornaments onto every available branch.  Don't get me wrong, the final product looks good, and I am probably the only one not entirely satisfied.  I could have easily left off twenty or thirty ornaments, but refuse to not follow our tradition.  This tree is more than just a decoration, it is a lifetime of memories.

FAILURE TO MASK UP

 Because these are musings, they may not be in some logical order, more on the line of random thoughts.  The "argument" that government, be it local or federal,  shouldn't step in but allow people to, on their own, do the right thing, fails to acknowledge that a large percentage of people will not do the "right" thing, no matter what.  

For instance, we have a mandatory seat-belt law.  Many people choose to ignore it.  I know of two, so far, who died in a one car accident because they ignored it.  The catholic church forbids artificial birth control.  I saw a survey which indicated 96% of the faithful ignored this stricture.  In these cases, following or not following only affects the person(s) involved.  It was their responsibility and the consequences fell upon them.

Not so with the mask mandate.  While some cases can point to maybe one person (the wedding in Maine being an example), non-mask wearers get off scot free when it comes to consequences.  Because so many are "symptom free" they can be spreading the disease willy-nilly without anyone being the wiser.  Or, even worse, have symptoms but go about their business and not tell anyone.  The recent episode of the Texas A&M Band members is high on my list.  

So when someone tells me it should be a personal responsibility, my response is "How's that working out?"  It's only a matter of time.  I'm hoping for more and better therapeutics.  A vaccine is good, but I'm thinking a mask and distance will be around for at least another year indoors.  Outdoors I'm hoping we can finally get in some group rides, and will continue to eat outdoors whenever possible.  But if you tell me you don't do masks, don't expect my respect.

One more tangential thought.  I see the county judge in El Paso has been overruled by the state appeals court.  It's interesting that when our governor ignores federal mandates, it's because of State's Rights, but if a local ignores a state mandate, there is no local right.  Just sayin'