The winter solstice seems like a good time to knock off posting for the year. Will resume about January 2. Best regards for Christmas, New Year’s and all the festive days at the cold end of the calendar, at least here in the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere.
“Solstice gets its shine from sol, the Latin word for ‘sun,’ ” Merriam Webster notes. “The ancients added sol to -stit– (a participial stem of sistere, which means ‘to stand still’) and came up with solstitium. Middle English speakers shortened solstitium to solstice in the 14th century.”
Seasonal decoration at our house has been an ongoing process this year, more robust than many years. Why? Why not? For instance, there are two Christmas trees in the living room.
The larger of the two is a Scotch pine from Wisconsin, acquired at the same lot I’ve visited for some years now. Usually we get a Douglas fir, but they were insanely expensive this year, over $100 for even the scrawniest example. Most years, even recent ones, I’ve paid about half that, so I got a Scotch pine for $60.
Scotch pines are good-looking enough trees, but its large needles make it harder to hang ornaments. Sometimes balls or figures only seemed to be in place, only to soon lose their purchase on the prickly branches and roll onto the carpet. No broken ones yet, however.
Still, hang them we did. Ann, mostly. But this one was mine: a near-exact duplicate of a plastic star I hung on our trees as a kid. A dash of midcentury for our tree.
שׁלום. Shalom. 
Ann has a great fondness for Snoopy.
“Snoopy’s Christmas,” once you suspend your disbelief about a dog flying a warplane, is a pithy and touching ballad. “Snoopy’s Christmas Truce” would have been a better title.
Betty made her annual appearance.
The smaller tree is a cheap artificial that we occasionally put outside, but I never much liked its appearance. This year it’s inside, decked out much better, for something of a Charlie Brown transformation.
Handmade this year by Yuriko.
Kitchen-sink decoration practices applied to both trees, as in everything but. I wrote about them 20 years ago. As the surfers say, tempus fugit, dude.
… my first guideline on Christmas tree decoration: lights first, ornaments next, icicles after that (tinsel to some people, those who also call it “trimming” the tree). The last item is the Star of Bethlehem, which goes on top.
Other guidelines, if you happen to be me, and want to decorate your tree:
* Space the lights and ornaments evenly, but not uniformly or systematically. That is, unless you have a very young child, as we do; in that case, fewer and tougher ornaments go near the bottom, and fewer lights down there too.
* Decorate the back, the bottom and the interior of the branches, not only the front or visible sides.
* Be eclectic with ornaments, but no commercial logos or too-silly ornaments, unless your child made them.
These still hold. In fact, I’ve passed them along to the next generation. Also, I continue to make an exception for the Michelin Man, because the company makes such bloody good maps.
Poinsettias for the dining table.
A battery-powered orb. Looks like an infrared image of the Sun or the like.
Lights elsewhere in the house.
Every year, some strings light no more after 11 idle months, but even so we have extras. Easy come, easy go. Not like the durable light the strings of my youth, which lasted the entirety of my youth.
Best to keep gnome Stalin off the tree this year.
He still lurks among the front hallway plants, though.
Spotted the other day on a retail shelf. Careful, though: Not intended for highway use, unless you want to scatter elf limbs on the Interstate.
