Happy Holidays!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Wow, Betty, is that your tree? It looks like a professional designer tree!
Roger, that ornament is lovely!
As for improvisation, I wasn't so much in the mood for a tree this year, but a very special gift called for at least a branch at last minute. Guess what it was...
   

[BettyO]

Thanks, Eva.

I LOVE your Christmas Tree - it's a true German Christmas Tree....
The first Christmas Tree in Richmond, VA was brought over by the Reverend Paul Minnegrode, a German minister at St Paul's Episcopal Church on Grace Street, in the 1840s. The trend soon caught on all over Richmond, VA.

This is my rendition of a "Victorian" Christmas Tree...it consists of ornaments from my mother's Christmas trees as a girl growing up in the 1920s, ornaments and things from my sister and I growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as store bought antique Christmas Ornaments. I have one or two ornaments that are original. Most Victorian Christmas Tree ornaments were made of pasteboard or paper and decorated with silk fringe, etc.

I found this one at an antique store in Maryland about 25 years ago. It dates from 1880 and has a Christmas verse on the back -

[L Verge]

When my daughter got married in 1996, our heirloom ornaments went to her house to continue the tradition. She has resorted to a fake tree, but it is so filled with ornaments that you can't see the branches. At the top, sits a paper angel nestled in spun glass clouds. There is a story behind that. When I was teaching in the 1960s, a student of mine gave me that angel. It was very special to me because it was exactly like the one that had been on my childhood trees and was now too shabby to put out. I learned later that Mary (one of my special students) had shoplifted the angel to have something to give me. That did not diminish its value to me one iota. My daughter knows the story, and being a teacher also, she's cool with the idea.

On the rows closest to the angel are ornaments from my grandmother's first Christmas tree in 1875, others from the family through the ages, my mother's first in 1914, my first in wartime 1943 (clear purple glass with paper cap and string for hanging during the time of rationing metals), and on through 2013. My daughter is an ornament addict, but somehow they all make it on the tree and look gorgeous. She has a tabletop tree in her foyer on which she displays all of the White House ornaments. And, I just ordered the one that Roger posted that is from the Secret Service's White House series.

Like Betty, I have a collection of paper ornaments and greeting cards from the 19th century that came through the family also. Those were always displayed at Surratt House during our holiday event. They are now stored in conservation boxes because they became more fragile each year. The greeting cards, however, led to my collecting antique valentines - but that's another story.

[ReignetteC]

Though not as classy as Christmas ornament, these socks (Lincoln) filled my Christmas stocking. The sales clerk said they were "best sellers."

[BettyO]

LOVE the Lincoln socks!! By the way - love the Brand Name "Sock It To Me" as well..... wonder if you can get these online?

[L Verge]

A friend just sent me this email on being politically correct at this time of year, so I'm passing it on so that you can remember the correct words to these songs in 2014:

O Holiday Tree

Have Yourself a Merry Little Day of Winter

Frosty the Snowperson

Chestnuts Roasting on a Safely Contained, Continuously Monitored, Eco-friendly Non-Toxic Outdoor Fire (for which I do have a permit)

Higher Power Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Grandma Allegedly Got Run Over by an Unidentified Non-Human Perpetrator

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Unendangered Foliage (if office policy permits)

Hark! The Herald Mythical Winged Creatures Sing

I Saw Mommy Greeting Santa Claus with a Purely Platonic Expression of Inoffensive Mutual Affection

I'll Be Home for a Short Period of Time in December

If you have other versions of other songs, please keep us updated so that we will offend no one (except tens of millions of Christians).

[Rob Wick]

Yawn.

Best
Rob

[L Verge]

Sorry, I didn't mean to waken you, Rob. Go back to sleep. Am I allowed to wish everyone a Happy New Year?

[Gene C]

Yawn.

Best
Rob

Bah, Humbug...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Go for it Laurie,.............."God bless us, every one!" - Tiny Tim

[Rob Wick]

Sorry, I didn't mean to waken you, Rob. Go back to sleep. Am I allowed to wish everyone a Happy New Year?

No skin off my nose.

If you have other versions of other songs, please keep us updated so that we will offend no one (except tens of millions of Christians).

That tens of millions of non-Christians might be offended, of course, doesn't matter.

Best
Rob

[L Verge]

There are times when no response is needed - and this is one of those times. Your logic defies comment.

Happy New Year, Rob. Please let me know if I have offended you by sending that greeting, and I will withdraw it.

To the rest of my friends on this forum, I truly wish you all a peaceful, prosperous, and enriching New Year in 2014. I have thoroughly enjoyed our correspondence throughout 2013 and hope that we continue to enroll new and outstanding members who can increase our knowledge in a friendly and congenial atmosphere.

[J. Beckert]

That tens of millions of non-Christians might be offended, of course, doesn't matter.

No, it doesn't. If tens of millions of non-Christians are offended by our Christimas traditions practised in a nation founded on Christian values, they need to get tougher skin or move. I've had enough of the pandering.

[Gene C]

A special happy, healthy, and prosperous New Years wish for you Rob.
And a honorable mention for everyone else here too!

[Rob Wick]

Thank you Gene. I wish you, and everyone else, the same.

Best
Rob

[Eva Elisabeth]

Please allow me to remark, I've never heard of that Christmas is a politically incorrect term, or that Christmas songs offend anyone. What about religious freedom and tolerance?