Sunday, November 30, 2014

From Happy Thanksgiving...

Love those Ronson candles...
...to Merry Christmas...
...and that Slimline Aluminum Christmas tree.
...all in the same week.

And what a week at work it was...the craziness of the Christmas rush has begun...7 days a week from now until the big day...o boy.

I do enjoy putting up my aluminum tree...in its rotating tree stand...and putting the color wheel in place...with the two battery operated stacks of Christmas presents...all in front of our Malm fireplace...a little bit of mid century modern heaven.

Here's a video of the American Flyer electric train I put around the base of the tree:

So that's about it for my Christmas decorating responsibilities...oh, I also had to put up the nativity scene outside...a stable, and plastic figures of Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.

I might add a couple of critters this year, or maybe the wisemen.

Karen on the other hand will transform the rest of our home into a Christmas wonder land...and I'll probably get sucked into the decorating vortex again when that activity begins...mostly just hauling boxes out of the garage and putting them back once the contents have been distributed appropriately.  We do have a 9 ft tree that K puts up each year...

She asked me if I would be ok if we didn't this year, and I told her of course...my mcm aluminum tree is the only one I need...but I also told her she'll never get away with that b/c her daughters will insist on tradition.  Guess who was right when she asked them?  So the 9 ft tree will make another appearance this year...it is spectacular once she has it up, but it's a lot of work.

Later, mcm fans...

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Much Ado...

...about not so much (with apologies to the Bard).

As it turns out, there was much preparation for very little...Mother Nature got pissed about something and blew up a storm on All Hallows' E'en, complete with gale force winds, the season's first snowflakes, and wind chills in the 20's.  Consequently our usual 100+ trick or treaters dwindled to some paltry sum less than 50.   Hardy souls they were, each and every one that braved the storm.

As Charlie Brown might say, rats!  Today I feel like Linus bemoaning the absence of the Great Pumpkin...all that time and effort preparing for the big night and in the end it was only Snoopy.


Lots of clean up today...besides putting all the decorations away for another year, we also have a major mess in the backyard from all the falling branches, courtesy of the wind storm.

Oh well...some pics from the not so big event:

My official work portrait...I stopped in at 9:30 for the costume contest...not sure if I won anything other than the undying respect of my terrified co-workers.

Our front entrance, scarified for the festivities...forgot to put out The Creature From The Black Lagoon, but he's light and probably would have blown away:
He was going to sit on top of the bushes, next to the Scare-wolf.

Should have taken a picture of the tree creature and his buddies...I set up the swinging bat and the raven in a cage on either side of him, hanging from the tree limbs

Yeah, it's a repeat of an earlier tree creature pic.

I think maybe the photographer had a little too much to drink, or else the house was tipping over when this pic was taken.

...or maybe it's just the miracle of perspective?  Still looks a little tipsy, but this time I was the photographer.  Was that one whiskey I had or two??

Mr. Bolts and his lovely bride...kinda looks like Cher, doesn't she?

...and their beautiful daughter, Sarah the Huntress.

Ah well...there's always next Halloween.

A couple of my phones arrived last week, so I rearranged some of my collection to set up my Talk Through The Decades display:

That's a panoramic shot of them...looking from right to left is the 19-teens candlestick phone; next to that is the 1920's Western Electric 102B1 phone; the blank spot is where the Danish KTAS D30 phone from the 1930's will go...a brief interlude to enjoy a fine, Wild_Hare 5 cent cigar from the humidor, then we rejoin the tour with a Western Electric model 302 "I Love Lucy" phone from the 1940's; then a Western Electric Spacesaver phone from the 1950's - that one is actually hooked up to our land line; and finally a 1960's Swedish Ericofon in lovely Barbie pink...keep your comments to yourself.

I went right to left instead of the more traditional left to right b/c I wanted the spacesaver to be hooked up and working and the phone jack is on the left...could run a longer line, and if I get one I may move things around, but for now that's the setup.  The 1930's Danish phone should be here next week.

Today will disappear in a flurry of exciting tasks, either work or nature related, so it's into the fray we go.

Later, mcm fans...