The False Ducks Blahg

     How was your Christmas?  You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have a story to tell.  That’s what these blahgs are all about:  stories from me.  Sometimes what I have to say might make you laugh or smile or wonder why I haven’t gone off my nut before this.  Maybe my story might pale in comparison to yours but I’ll continue to offer up my stories and we’ll see how mine stacks up. 

   This Christmas of 2022 was the whitest I’ve seen in years.  I was reflecting on that with my wife and realized in the past five or six years that we have had a green Christmas or light dustings of snow that didn’t amount to much.  In fact, the last time we had a huge snowfall was on Christmas in 2017 because I wrote a blahg about it:  BEING SICK ON CHRISTMAS IS NO FUN, BUT HERE WE GO.  That year I had to shovel out the end of my driveway so my wife could take me to the hospital with the worst sore throat I’ve ever had.  I don’t care to relive it so read that blahg at your leisure.

   I’ve posted before about my lawn display of Christmas inflatables and things really looked nice until the major snow came and buried everything and I couldn’t find them again until the New Year.  I don’t have any pictures of my display from Christmas 2022 so I’ll offer up some photos from inside the house instead.  

   First up is our Christmas tree.  We get a real tree every year but there are no local Christmas Tree farms open in our area.  So, this is the second year we’ve purchase a tree from the local Firefighters.  It cost $60 but it goes to a good cause.  Here’s a photo of this year’s tree:

Notice that the star at the top is different this year.  When we plugged in our old star it would not light up and when I tried to put in replacement bulbs, they all burned out.  Here’s what our star topper has looked like in previous years: 

We had that old star for a long time so it might have outlived its lifespan.  My wife went to Canadian Tire and bought another one of the same shape and size but it shone in a bronze colour and I didn’t like it.  I stopped at Walmart the following day and purchased the current one.  I think it’s nice and the shining whiteness made it feel more like Christmas to me.  Maybe I can get the old one working again or we might just stick with the replacement.  Bonus marks to anyone who noticed that my 2022 tree was taller and thinner than the one above in a photo from 2018.  I’ll talk more about the tree later

   I like nutcrackers.  There, I’ve said it.  There’s something about them that makes me want to collect them and display them at Christmastime.    Here’s another photo from 2018 when I displayed most of my nutcrackers:

That wasn’t all of the nutcrackers because I had to put some of the nutcrackers on a speaker and others on the floor.  This year I decided to build a little shelf to put on the cabinet in the photo so that nutcrackers would be on display up the wall.  Here’s the result: 

You can see that there are still some on a speaker and others on the floor.  Throughout 2022 I bought about a dozen used ones at thrift shops and they stayed on my piano during the year until joining the above collection.  My daughter Abbie gave me the hockey player nutcracker on the second shelf for Christmas and which I picture on the left.  I think he’s fun. 

   The other thing we take pride of in our house at Christmas is our mantle display of Christmas related figures.  Here’s what that looked like in 2018:

It’s a challenge to fit everything on the mantle and I usually buy two or three more and try to fit them in.  Here’s what the display looked like this year: 

Click on any of the above photos to get a larger view.   Then you can really see some of these treasured figures close up. 

   Now, let’s talk about what happened to our Christmas.  The plan was to have my daughter Emily and her husband Charlie drive down from Toronto on December 24th and bring my son Noah with them.  Well, it started snowing December 23rd and didn’t stop until late Christmas night on the 25th.   The roads were closed out our way and the major highway between Toronto and Belleville was also closed.  I had a large snowdrift in front of my garage door to the top and I had to dig it out to get at my snowblower.  On Christmas Eve, Abbie and I walked out in the falling snow to the end of our driveway and by then it was knee high.  Here’s a video of Jeanette and I heading out Christmas morning to clear the driveway again: 

Emily, Charlie, and Noah did not get to our house until December 26th so we held off opening presents until that day.  I had stopped at my Mother’s house on December 23rd to bring the 28 pound turkey to my house to cook and bring out to her house on Christmas day.  It was cooking for 7 hours in my house and it smelled awesome.  The bird, like us, did not make it to Christmas dinner at my Mother’s until December 26th.  Jeanette, Abbie, and I nibbled a little at it Christmas day with instant mashed potatoes and a little of the stuffing that was inside the bird.  On December 26th we had the turkey proper at my Mother’s with real mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, peas, and turnip along with rolls and three different kinds of of pie (pumpkin, apple, and pecan if you’re interested).  Besides my children, my wife, my son-in-law and my Mother, we had dinner with my brothers Dan and Todd and my friend Tom who had no place else to go.  It was just as good on Boxing Day as it would have been on the real Christmas day.  

   Now back to the tree.  In 2019 I wrote a Christmas themed blahg called MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS.  In that blahg I debuted a new Christmas entertainment with the same name as the blahg.  Here’s an excerpt from that entertainment:

   I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree.  At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts.  Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in.  It’s swept up in the current and disappears.  I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometer before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight.  In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea.  More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.

This year’s tree was no exception to the tradition of launching the tree into the creek in the New Year.  It didn’t quite work out as planned but I recorded a video of my attempt to properly launch the tree:  

I went back the next day and the tree had dislodged itself and was on its final journey.  Thus ended Christmas.  I guess the theme here is that all good things come to those who wait or Christmas is just as good the second day round.  I hope you enjoyed yours!

Tags: Christmas, Christmas Tree, False Ducks, Scott Henderson

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