Happy New Year

A final photo of a Christmas decoration is a thoughtful gift we were given of an monogram flag outside our front door. It brings to a close my first year (actually started three weeks into the year) of blogging. My goal for 2010 is to continue to post nearly every day, with one or two photos and usually continuing a topic over a period of days or weeks. I have no idea what topic I will open tomorrow, so tune in then.

In case future reference might be of interest, I have tracked the general topics I have covered by date this year and list them here. Happy New Year!

2009 Topics: 1/15 2008 Alaska Vacation, 2/12 Winterscapes, 2/19 Restoration of Family Portraits, 3/2 Springscapes, 3/6 Abstracts & Polar Coordinates, 3/13 Chicago Architecture, 3/25 Arizona Spring Training, 4/11 IPRA Magazine Cover 1979, 4/15 2008 Garden Views, 5/13 St. James Farm, 5/27 Migratory Bird Day, 6/5 New Invaders Rock Band in Glen Ellyn, 6/9 Millennium Park, 6/16 Art Institute Modern Wing, 6/28 Peoria Chiefs & Josh Vitters, 7/1 Meeting Bobby in Boston, 7/16 2009 Europe Vacation beginning in Britain, 8/9 2009 Europe Vacation continuing on the Continent, 9/16 Brookfield Zoo, 9/26 Revolutionary War Encampment & Skirmish, 10/4 Springfield and Lincoln Sites, 10/14 New Salem Lincoln Sites, 10/19 Fall Festival at Danada (Horses), 10/29 Wayne-DuPage Fox Hunt, 11/1 Fall Color in Waterfall Glen, 11/11 Fall Color in Volkening Farm, 11/15 Fall Color in Maple Grove & Meacham Grove Forest Preserves, 11/22 Signs Seen, 12/1 Christmas Holiday Decorations, 12/9 Winterscapes, 12/16 Photos With Santa, 12/26 Icy Christmas & Decorations

Garland

One of the nicest new decorations we bought this year was, believe it or not, one piece of golden garland. We use it in the Disney Room.

Christmas Storage Time

Christmas is over for another year, and it is time to start storing the decorations. A few final looks at our holiday decorations as the old year closes.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

Two more views of the impressive ice storm just before Christmas. Beautiful and intricate.

Icy White Christmas

December 23 weather in Chicago featured an ice storm that was exceptionally beautiful on the Burning Bush outside our dining room. The bush is lit by a floodlight every night and each branch was covered in the icy rain.
Two more images of the icy bush in the next post.

God Bless Us Every One

Two images from Christmas 1969. The family card game featuring my dad, my grandpop and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law became a part of the holidays for over a decade. The photo of me and Marilyn with Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy was showing off some gifts: we knew we were expecting but we did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl. A wonderful Christmas, just four months after I started teaching at Lisle High School.
A new topic in the next post!

Christmas Eve 1968 & 1969

Two images from Christmas forty years ago. Mine is actually from '68 in our one-year married student apartment at Western Illinois University. Marilyn's is in '69 as we celebrated our first Christmas in Lisle where I had been hired as a teacher. The photo was taken at my Grandparents' apartment in Chicago.
Two more Christmas photos tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

Back to B&W

The final two grayscale or black&white memories for Christmas are widely varying. One from the late 1950s with Marilyn and her cousins at the grandparents' house in Rockford and one from the late 1960s of me and my smoking jacket in front of the festive aluminum Christmas tree.
Good Lord, was that "only" forty years ago?

This Christmas

As a special favor, Santa Claus came by our home yesterday on his way back from meeting children at the mall. He was again checking that list twice or even for a third time and asking Gianna and Joey what they want this Christmas. He even knew that Gianna wants the Bitty Baby Twins, and he heard Joey say the magic words "Choo-Choo" and "trucks."
It was a great visit and one we will remember always.

To Town . . .

We don't have as many Santa photos of my wife Marilyn and her sister Eileen, but these two are priceless memories of the 1950s. Santa was coming to town every Christmas and leaving behind lots of wonderful photographic memories.
A jump in time is planned for the next post.

Santa Claus is Coming

My earliest memories of place are of a flat in Chicago in the area that later became University of Illinois Chicago, just west of the Loop. But as I recall any fleeting Christmas memories, I realize they are all in good old black-&-white, so I must be remembering the photos, not the events. I just love the wallpapers and the print carpets.
By the way, during the 50s, many major motion pictures and even more television series were centered on the great genre of the American Western. My Dad, who had seen World War II in person, never loved war movies. He always loved Westerns. My love for Westerns is pretty easy to understand. How do you like my six-guns? Recognize the vest?
By the way, the trains under the trees, just barely visible, were powered by a mighty Lionel Lines 027 guage engine which was present at my very first Christmas just two days before my first birthday. That engine, whose light will light up but whose drive train no longer moves, is a treasured memento in my hobby room.

Who's Naughty & Nice

Two more pictures with Santa in the middle-1950s. I am sure Santa's list would have had both Cliff & me on both lists at various times, even though we each would have denied that at the time.
Truth to tell, I do recall a Christmas or two when I was a little nervous about getting a lump of coal in my stocking! By the way, I do believe the vest shot was taken during the same December as the one depicted in the previous post.

Still Finding Out

Two more nuggets from the 50s, another with my brother Cliff. And one with me wearing a tie with a vest, which my friends and former students will recognize as one of the staples of my wardrobe ever since.
The wispy-bearded Santa in the vest-wearing photo was the guest of honor at a lodge meeting that my dear Grandma Mezner took me to. She was a member of the Slovene National Benefit Society and loved to sing at their events. Especially the Christmas party!
More look-backs in the next post.

Still Checking It Twice

I would not have known terms such as "grayscale" or "sepia tone" in the early 1950s, but looking through the family collection of photographs from the time, they were the only normal choices. All the snapshots are grayscale (then incorrectly termed 'black & white' which would actually indicate a silhouette) while posed portraits were often in the sepia.
And by the early 50s, my brother Cliff would always be in line with me, sometimes seeing Santa at the same time as I did.
It appears that I always did like wearing sweaters! More views of Santa in the 50s in the next post.

Still Making a List

Yes, Santa is still making that list much as he has for so many years. Here are some souvenir shots from the late 1940s -- yes, sixty winters ago -- with me telling Santa what was on my list. For the life of me, I cannot remember what WAS on the list, and I have decided that the list itself, the hope that so often comes true on Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning, is really the list we all have.
I certainly seemed to be paying close attention to that wonderful beard and mustache in the second photo, didn't I?
More Christmas memories in the next post.

Two More Trees

Trees look prettier to me in spring, more lush in summer, and more exquisitely beautiful in fall. But with the right light in the sky, trees are much more strikingly interesting and complex in winter.
Tomorrow we will begin a look at Christmas photos, featuring various eras of children and one jolly bearded man dressed either in red or in its greyscale equivalent.

Roads

The image of the winding or curving roadway has been a staple in graphic imagery for centuries. Long before photography, painters and sketchers depicted that image, and Winterscapes can feature the same structure.
Winter roadways can always be seen as the pathway among and through the snowbanks to reach the destination . . . spring!
One more post of Winterscapes is set for tomorrow.

More Trees

Two more tree shapes I just had to share. These were collected at Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, just about a year ago.

Shapes

Winterscapes are great for shapes. Whether it is the tree lacking leaves and showing its bones or whether it is the blanket of snow changing the arc of a statue, there is always an interesting shape to collect.
Winterscape? Wintershape!

Reflecting

Two reflective images collected about a year ago in Wisconsin Dells. The slow-moving river allowed the reflection of both scenes to be mirror-smooth, while the distincitve rocky formations in the other photo are required for the photographer's Dells collection. The view of the bridge with its attendant light poles is an image that works with either end up.

Bright Sunny Color

Continuing our look at various Winterscapes, we look at a pair of bright sunny images with color worthy of a summer day. Surrounded, of course, by wintry cold!
More winterscapes in the next post.

Winter Wonderland

Winter hit Chicago with its first slap in the face recently . . . not the fist it might use on us later, but a brisk slap . . . and it sent me into the files for some of my favorite Winter Wonderland shots. I call them Winterscapes.
The nature of the winterscape, featuring snow, generates lots of monochromatic shots or at least shots of the limited palette. Grayscale often works well. But the enterprising photographer will also find lots of color to feature in the work.
More winterscapes in the next post.

Gregorian Santa

Several years ago I decided to put some sports collector cards for sale on eBay during the month of November. Hoping to sell the cards for say $50-$100 overall, I was pleasantly surprised to find that one Magic Johnson card in Michigan State uniform and one Walter Payton card had greater value than I though. The total for the sale was over $700. My thought was to buy something that would be memorable and that would become a family heirloom. Since we love Christmas decorations so much, I went looking.
Quite soon, I discovered Fitz & Floyd's Gregorian Santa, saw a sale price at Carson's, and brought him home. Majestic, festive, and classy, he brightened the dining room enough that I went back and added the reindeer and two candle sconces.
Every November we bring out the decorations and are amazed once again at the beauty of this representation. The windfall of the card sale has become permanant in our family.
The next post will take up a different topic.

Kitchen Decs

The kitchen is often the center of family and guest activities, and we have a kitchen tree as well. Small and on the counter-top, it has food-related ornaments. Surrounding that tree are four cookie cutters, two gingerbread girls and two gingerbread boys, to represent our four grandchildren. Only one of the four is clearly visible in this view.
Above the sink we have a greenhouse bay window and that is filled in December with a small Snow Village scene. A home, a church, a toy store and a traffic jam of people -- along with Santa -- are all present.
Our favorite decoration is ready for the next post.

Inside the Door

The welcome feeling inside the door, where guests arrive to hang their coats and get a warm wintry drink, has a tree of its own and a decorative table display of a typical Christmas family scene. Garland drapes the handrails and the festive atmosphere is established early.
Two more rooms to look at in upcoming posts.

Dickens & Crackers

Over the years, the collections change and the displays change as well, but we have had Nutcrackers for many years and a Dickens Village for about ten years. Now they are both above the 50" television in the family room, the Village on a wide shelf above the television and the crackers up across the bridge with their heads brushing the ceiling.
Santa Claus centers the crackers, flanked by Uncle Sam and Harry Truman on our right and by Mark Twain and a European immigrant on our left. Gepetto, Pinocchio, another toy maker and several guards are also present.
In the Village, Scrooge's home is to our left next to a nice Victorian Home, a town square, a Chocolate Shop, and the offices of Scrooge & Marley. Most of the figures are Victorian ladies and gentlemen and shop keepers, but several Scrooge representations are included. The young Scrooge is to the left with Christmas Past, a huge Christmas Present fills the center with Cratchit & Tim and the prize turkey, and the right includes the frightened Scrooge with Christmas Yet to Come.
By the way, the new film of CHRISTMAS CAROL in 3D is excellent. I still like George C. Scott in the 1984 version best, but this new film is well worth seeing.

More Mickey

A closeup of a Mickey ornament featuring the traditional ears, and another Mickey item in the room: Mickey and Minnie looking at a list of the gift-receiving good little boys and girls: Gianna, Carolyn, Joey and Bobby. Mickey moves when the grandchildren are around (and when we plug him in!)