Dear Virginia people celebrate many different Holidays in Many Ways or NOT!

Dear Virginia people celebrate 

many different Holidays in Many Ways or 

NOT at ALL!

Virginia since I first got married in 1966 I have generally have had

REAL CUT FRESH DOUGLAS FIR TREES wherever I was living:

Michigan, Florida, Georgia

If I HAVE HAD A TREE

+

*

**

***

****

*****

XX

My mother started using a short table top ARTIFICIAL TREE around the time I, 3rd and youngest son, became 13. My father was in the habit of not returning home from work until 8 or 9 at night Monday to Thursday and sleeping in until closer to noon or Saturday and Sunday. The only time I saw him home before usually was on the days my mother would ride three buses or 2 busses and a streetcar from our home in northeast Detroit at 8 Mile Road near Scheonherr to shop at J. L. Hudson's, huge department store in downtown Detroit on Woodward Ave making a day of it.

When I was young and was traveling with my mother for my monthly hearing tests and speech correction at Wayne State University we did the 3 bus or 2 bus and 1 street car street and made a day of it. At 5 pm we would or my mother alone would end up at Sam's, a cheap, dingy department store (long before the US trend towards discount stores of various names) and stand outside on the sidewalk and wait, like you would wait for a bus and my father would appear in his most recent car, our family car.

After I mother gave birth to my middle brother in 1939 and the family moved in 1940 into their NEW and only home until they both died in the 1970s she stopped driving. The 'FAMILY STORY' was always that she had become too nervous to drive any longer.

Like so many 'FAMILY STORIES' in most families that may have been a myth covering the REAL REASON(s).

The first year I was single again in 1976 I didn't have the extra money to buy a tree so I created my first IMAGINARY 2 Dimensional TREE using artificial garland to create a tree taped or push pinned to cardboard or Foam Board™ and added one string of rainbow colored lights and hung a few 3 dimensional ornaments or hand drawn ones.

In the late 60s and early 70s I was doing FREELANCE DESIGN and CARTOON DISPLAY WORK for a mix of clients, especially 2 restaurants and a couple shoppes and had been decorating each for December Holidays and for other special times or parties, so the idea of CREATING IMAGINARY or DISPLAY TREES was not new to me.

A few recent years because I was not at home in much of November or December I simply did not have a tree or didn't have the "seasonal spirit" for one or to spend the $40 or more for a REAL CUT TREE.

Last year I was a little moody but them on Thanksgiving Day week, when I usually purchased trees for many years as tradition in my family home, I came up with the idea of stringing 3 different colored strands of artificial garland and created a 3 dimensional looking IMAGINARY spatial tree attaching the top ends to one of my my track lights over the front window in my living room and hung some light weight 2 dimensional ornaments or feather weight ornaments and arranged some of my collection of Santa Clauses on a small "end" table that I have had in my Living Room the past 31 years in different locations, when not in storage in my "CREATIVITY ROOM".

I felt very CREATIVE and my spirits became more HOLIDAY-ish for the next month until the 2nd of January, the traditional day for my family to take down decorations and "throw" the cut natural, real tree out in the alley behind our home to be picked up by the city garbage truck.

Since Merry and I moved into this house in 1986 on "my little half acre" or "Alan's Walden Pond sans a pond" I have simply dragged the circus of the Christmas outside in the back down the steps to ground level and dragged it to a location in my natural woods or little forest to let Mother Nature decompose it.

Often I stood it up against a tree or two and it became a place for my NATURAL BIRD friends to hang out so I could watch them until the tree decomposed losing all its needles and I eventually dragged it further into my woods/forest out of sight from my house or the small grassed area between my house and the forest.

I am stopping telling this long winded story until I can find photos from past Christmases and insert them in this blog.

Thanks for reading so far

Come back again to read the complete story with photos and drawings added to complete it.