Holidays

Dumping the Christmas tree

I used to do this. I would throw my Christmas tree off the balcony. But I didn’t leave the ornaments on, I would remove those first.

I did it because lugging it down the elevator left so many needles inside the elevator and it was a chore trying to get them all out, so I dumped the tree.

I had a convertible, so when I bought the tree I dumped it in the back seat of the car and brought it home. When I was getting rid of it, I tossed it off the balcony and then dragged it to the street.

I had someone stand downstairs to be sure no one was under it when I tossed it, so there was that.

That’s how I got the idea for this cartoon. Of course it’s funnier with all the ornaments and lights still on the tree.

I no longer throw the tree over because I bought an artificial tree some years back. I wasn’t that crazy about it after I set it up and thought I would just use it a couple of years and then go back to buying real trees, but it’s so easy to just lug it out of the spare room and lug it back, so it’s been the norm now.

My family and I do this gift exchange thing with ornaments. We give regular gifts, but the ornament thing is a game sort of. You get an ornament and wrap it and play that thing where you choose the ornament and the next person can steal it. I think it’s called the “White Elephant Gift Exchange,” but we do it with the ornaments.

For years I would wait till the last minute and go to the store and get the best of what was left. This year I forgot, so I took a good ornament off my own tree and wrapped that. I put it in an old sunglasses box I had and it confused people at the exchange. But when they opened it, they loved the ornament.

This year, no one stole anyone’s ornament and the last gift was a dud and one of my sisters-in-law got that.

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Merry Christmas!

As usual, here is my favorite all time Publix commercial. I post it every year at this time.

This commercial ran for a few years from 1987 to 1996 and every time it came on, I would stop what I was doing and watch. It’s part of my Christmas memories of my youth and it’s just one of those things – a song, just like a smell, that brings you back to another time.

The music in Last Train Home is from Still Life Talking an album by Pat Metheny Group, released in 1987.

To this day, when Pat Metheny is performing, he’ll refer to the song as, “The Publix song.”

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O Christmas tree

I’ll be putting up the Christmas tree over the weekend.

I know, I know. Too early.

The thing is I am going to NY for a couple of weeks and when I get home, it will be the first week of December, so I like to just have it up so I don’t feel rushed and have to deal with it then.

I don’t light it up until December. Right now I’ll just have it up and decorated. Ready to go.

One year, I had the tree up in October! It wasn’t decorated.

What happened was, my friend Michael was visiting from NY and the spare room he was sleeping in, is used as storage for the tree, which of course, is artificial, so to make room, I dragged the tree out and stood it up in the living room. That’s it. It was not decorated or lit or anything like that. It just stood there. Naked.

I always had a real tree. I would throw it in the back of my convertible and lug it home.

One year I saw a nice tree in a big box store and thought I would get it and use it for a year or two and then go back to real trees, but it’s been so many years now and I still use the artificial tree. It’s so easy – just pull it out and it’s up. No lugging real trees in and out. To dump the real trees, I would throw them off the balcony, making sure no one was below. Then I would just drag it to the street.

When we were cleaning my parents’ house out this year, I was hoping to find the old Christmas ornaments from years past – from when we were kids and before; vintage stuff. But there was nothing old – just new ornaments. I’m guessing the old ones were ruined years ago in a hurricane, and I never paid attention to what was on the tree all these years, which obviously was new things which took their place.

When we were kids, I mean very little, we would put the tree up (real tree) a couple of weeks before Christmas. Now it seems people have trees up right after Halloween. I see some of the lots in the neighborhood at churches and clubs, already have their tents up with trees – probably to be sold out before Thanksgiving.

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How old is too old for Halloween?

Tootie (Margaret O’Brien) in Meet Me in St. Louis

Hold old is too old to trick-or-treat?

I say you’re never too old. There’s a thing where certain cities have age limits, I don’t know how they enforce that. Do they ask 12-year-olds to show I.D. to be sure they are not 14 and over the limit? And what sort of I.D. do 12-year-olds have?

If a 16-year-old wants to go through the trouble of dressing up and walking around trick-or-treating, so what? What if a 50-year-old wants to do that? So what?

If you’re gonna be cheap about handing out candy, then turn the lights out at your house and don’t participate.

I don’t think as many people as in the past trick-or-treat. I know when I was a kid the whole neighborhood was out and it went till late. Now I don’t see as many people, but maybe it’s just around where I live.

One of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” is when the kids are doing Halloween in 1903. So Halloween has been a long-standing thing in the U.S., and many other countries.

Adults have parties, they dress up at banks, schools, even the car dealership, so if these people want to trick-or-treat after work – so what?

I dressed up for years, my whole town did. I didn’t trick-or-treat, but I did go to parties and things. I think I only ended it because I didn’t want to be bothered making a costume every year. But I enjoy seeing everyone else dressed up and enjoying the day.

Give everyone candy if they are dressed up and come to your door. Full bars if possible!

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Falling into Fall

The quote, “And all at once, summer collapsed into fall,” is by Oscar Wilde.

Fall/Autumn is my favorite season. Again.

I say again, because I think most of my life Fall was my favorite, but for some years recently, summer ended up being my favorite. I don’t know how it became summer, but I’m glad it’s back to fall.

I live in Florida, and yes, we can feel the fall here, too. I was standing outside over the weekend and I could feel the fall. The light is different, there is a breeze in the air. It just feels different. There is less light and cooler temps.

This final quarter of the year is the best, as far as I am concerned. My favorite holidays have changed over the years, too. Of course Christmas has to be the best. And then I loved Halloween. Now my favorite is Thanksgiving. I don’t mind New Year’s Eve either. One of my friends always had New Year’s Eve as his favorite holiday, and I can see that now. I guess it’s the anticipation of a whole new year.

On Thanksgiving, I go to the Macy’s Parade, I stay about an hour, and then one of my cousins picks me up at the subway station in Queens and we go to her house and have brunch. Just three of us and Sara, their dog.

I get to the house before the parade is over, so we watch that and then the dog show which comes on tv afterwards. At 2 pm, we go to my other cousins not far away, and about 20 or more of us have Thanksgiving. We overeat, argue, laugh, just have a nice family time.

We sometimes do the Southampton Christmas Parade the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it ends up being a perfect four day weekend. In between all that, I am in NYC and enjoying the buildup to Christmas, with all the holiday things the city has to offer.

Of course, October leads into this and upcoming in a few weeks in New York Comic Con and a few of us go upstate New York to apple and pumpkin pick. That’s a perfect things, too. I’m hoping the next few weeks go slow leading up to it all because I don’t want it to all happen and be over with. I want the whole season to last.

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Ready for the Fall

This recent cartoon received a lot of talk lately. It seems another cartoonist did the same thing, a few weeks after mine was published and it might be a meme, too.

Over the years, so many cartoons have appeared that were the same or similar and it bothered me, but I’ve learned to get over it. There’s no way of knowing where the ideas come from, although this one particular cartoonist seems to have quite a few of my ideas pop up a week or two after mine are published. Coincidences, I guess?

I got this idea from a friend who actually asked me, “Are you ready for the fall?” And I laughed and said, “Of what, civilization?” And we both laughed. When he first said, “ready for the fall,” I thought of my favorite Madonna song, “Live to Tell.” In it she sings, “I was not ready for the fall.” I never saw the movie it’s from, “At Close Range,” but I’m assuming she isn’t singing about October.

The fall is special to me – Autumn, that is. In October and November, I’m in New York and there is a lot to do this time of year. I attend New York Comic Con in October and also in October, my cousins and I take our usual trip from NYC upstate to pumpkin and apple pick and to see the leaves changing.

In October, we sometimes go to the San Gennaro Feast in the Hamptons and also there’s an Oyster Festival, out east, too. This year, I see San Gennaro is in September. And of course, October is capped off with Halloween!

In November, we do Thanksgiving, and then the Saturday after Thanksgiving is the Southampton Christmas Parade, where all the small Hamptons towns get together for a light parade at dusk, then there is a tree lighting and fireworks afterwards. One of the best events of the year.

So yes – I am ready for the Fall – September, October and November.

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Aug-tober; it’s a real thing

Aug-tober. It’s a thing. It’s celebrating October, and specifically Halloween right now – in August!

Many stores, including Home Depot and Target have Halloween items out already and I’ve seen items being featured on tv on QVC. But of course, we know that as soon as September comes, the Christmas items will start showing up.

I see old movies and tv shows where people are buying and putting up the Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. I don’t want to go back to that, but I do think we should celebrate each holiday and season in the order that they come.

I have to admit that I do put up my Christmas tree in mid-November – only because I leave for New York then and don’t return until December, and I like to have it up when I get home so I don’t have to think about it.

I don’t light it. I start lighting it up a couple of weeks before Christmas.

One year I had it up in October! It wasn’t decorated, but it was stored in my spare room and I had a friend sleeping over, so I had to remove it from the room (it’s artificial, of course), and it seemed that it was easier to just put up the tree where it stands usually in the living room, but it wasn’t decorated. It just was there.

I do have my plans for October, regarding travel. I think it’s my favorite month. I’ll be at New York Comic Con as usual and I’ll be pumpkin and apple picking with some of my cousins in the Hudson Valley, which is always a favorite thing – seeing the leaves change, being in the cool weather, going to farms for the pumpkins and applies, having hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts . .. it’s perfect! And sometimes we do the Oyster Festival in The Hamptons and so many other fall things.

**Dude With Sign loves Halloween, too.**

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Happy 2024

I wrote last week that the week between Christmas and New Years was one of my favorite weeks. But I think the days and probably the whole week after New Year’s Day is also my favorite. I like when everything goes back to normal.

Things start off slow and ease into the New Year, which is a big change from the chaotic period between October and December, which I also love. But when it’s time for the chaos to end, it’s nice that January comes just in time. Of course by the end of February, I’m ready for something to happen, I feel that the months between January and maybe April, are boring.

I never make resolutions for the new year, not sure why, I just don’t. Guess I’ll just start taking the Christmas tree down and boxing up Mariah Carey, Home Alone and the leg lamp (yes, I have one, it was a gift a few years back).

Happy New Year!

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The week between Christmas and New Years

I think this is my favorite week of the year. We don’t have a name for it, though. What could we call the week between Christmas and New Years?

For many years, I was a bit worried, related to business. Each year, business would come to a complete halt. Two weeks before Christmas, up to New Years, business would just cease and I would get worried. And each year, my mother would say, “You say that every year! Don’t you remember, it’s like that each year?” And she was right. Business picked up right after the new year.

Now I don’t care. I learned to just take things as they come, or don’t come. And now I enjoy the lull in everything. I honestly keep forgetting what day of the week it is!

It’s funny, because right before Christmas, it’s very hectic with all the preparations and then it just stops on December 26.

I’m enjoying see all the hecticness at the airports this week on tv, and knowing I’m not part of that mess. I last traveled at Thanksgiving time, but it was during the off-days, so it wasn’t hectic. While it’s a big tourist time in Miami, I don’t live in a tourist area, so it doesn’t affect me.

I have a friend who has always loved New Year’s Eve and the new year. I guess it was all a fresh start for him, and now I appreciate that. I think these days my favorite Holiday is Thanksgiving. For many years it was Christmas, as I am sure most kids enjoy the most, then it was Halloween. Now it is Thanksgiving.

My mother always loved July 4th. One year for her birthday, I bought her all sorts of July 4th things – it seems weird, but it was great. I got decorations and big serving platter, lots of U.S. Flags and things like that. She really loved it.

While I love this time of year, I also enjoy my time in New York in the summer. I already made my plane reservations. I have six months to go and I have already started the countdown. I would like to go somewhere in Europe in the Spring, too. Still thinking what to do about that.

So for now I’m going to enjoy New Years Eve and Day and the new year. Hope you do, too.

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Last train home

As usual, I am posting my favorite Christmas commercial from Publix. It may be my favorite commercial of all time.

It reminds me of my youth, for a number of years, from 1987 to 1996, it ran every season.

The music in Last Train Home is from Still Life (Talking) an album by Pat Metheny Group, released in 1987.

To this day, when Pat Metheny is performing, he’ll refer to the song as, “The Publix song.” Publix has a new Christmas commercial every year, but I always hope they will bring it back for nostalgic value, so when I hear it come on, like I did in the “old days,” I would just drop everything and run to the tv to watch and listen.

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