Yes, it’s the annual Charlie Brown Tree o’ HO’s! It is the largest of our three Chuck Brown holiday trees, and it plays the Charlie Brown theme song. My seven “ho, ho,ho” Ties o’ the Day always accompany me when I pull this tree off the garage shelf, dust it off, and arrange the HO’s just so.
BTW If you haven’t already seen them, don’t forget to stream old COPS episodes of their annual “HO, HO, HO” Christmas episodes, featuring undercover ho arrests.
Here are two of my Chuck Brown X-mas trees, including the tiniest. Stay tuned to see the third Chuck Brown tree in this afternoon’s post. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you probably know what’s coming.
I like that TIE O’ THE DAY has been around long enough to have post topics people expect to see annually. My grandma’s early-70’s homemade milkweed pod Christmas ornament is one such holiday topic. It is a crafty artifact worth taking a moment to gaze upon. It’s a clever use for a milkweed pod, and it also shows off my beautiful grandmother, Zola Walker Wright—who our family has always called Momo (pronounced Mom’-o). I usually display the ornament with my “Santa, Baby” Ties o’ the Day, because Momo was a looker.
Momo was an elegant, well-spoken woman of manners and culture. She belonged to book clubs and garden clubs and whatever fine arts clubs existed in town. Despite her grace, she could not spell, and my dad’s lack of spelling ability came directly from her genes, I’m sure. They spelled words wrong, the same way.
Since we lived next door to Momo and Popo, I was the recipient of many Momo confections. She could bake up a storm, and I was a willing guinea pig for new recipes she tried out. But my fondest childhood memory of Momo is of her washing my hair every Sunday morning in her kitchen sink, to help out Mom while she got my siblings ready for church. Momo or Popo would lift me onto the kitchen counter, where I would lie down on a towel, with my head over the sink’s edge. Momo washed my hair with her sink sprayer. It felt exotic to me. She then towel-dried and combed out my hair and sent me off towards home where someone would assist me in getting into my church clothes.
I can still feel the kitchen counter, straight, beneath my stretched out kid’s body. I can feel the strangeness of lying there. And I can still feel the warmth of the water through my hair, the sting of shampoo in my eyes when I got too fidgety. I recall feeling entirely safe and loved and cared for as I lay on my back on the kitchen counter with my head over the sink. I felt wonderful because I knew this was something extra I got from my grandparents, simply because I lived next door and was the baby of my family.Thirty years later, when I bought my grandparents’ home, I repainted the kitchen and had the kitchen flooring replaced. The sink and the kitchen counters needed to be replaced, but I could not bring myself to do it. That was the Sunday morning hair-washing sink of my early childhood. That was “my” kitchen counter. I didn’t want them to be different than they had always been. When I sold the house in 2017, saying goodbye to the beat up sink and counter top was the hardest part of leaving the house for the last time.
I was thinking about how Santa spends his downtime. Of course, I went to the Tie Room to do research. Bow Tie o’ the Day tells me Santa likes to ice skate. The six Ties o’ the Day give evidence that Santa enjoys playing football with his reindeer, golfing in his sleigh, snow skiing, and snowboarding. But when Santa’s done playing, he checks Facebook to find how many friend requests he’s got—WHOA! That’s when he knows it’s time to get himself and his reindeer into tip-top shape for their bigly night. Sounds about right, to me.
I don’t know if the dude on my ugly sweater is supposed to be Santa, an elf, or a gnome. It looks most like a gnome to me. It’s probably a gnome-elf. Gnomes celebrate Christmas too, I’m sure. Ugly sweaters Bow Tie o’ the Day pairs nicely with ugly sweaters Tie o’ the Day. This is not the ugliest Christmas sweater I’ve ever owned, but I readily admit it ain’t purty. I think I’m dressed perfectly for putting together an ugly sweaters puzzle with Suzanne. Puzzling has been the highlight of this under-adventurous pandemic weekend. Always dress the part, I say, even if there’s not a crowd there to see how garishly cool you look.🎄
I decided to honor Dad—master hunter o’ all critters—by displaying six of my reindeer Christmas Ties o’ the Day, but I chose to actually wear the tie showing Santa and a reindeer fishing for Santa-hatted green fish. I got to go deer hunting with Dad on opening day long before I was old enough to do the required trekking. For the first few years I accompanied him and my brothers on opening day, I tuckered out early and ended up riding on Dad’s shoulders for most of the day’s hunt. I can still see the view of various mountain ranges from atop Dad’s shoulders, and I distinctly recall once laying my head on his head and falling asleep on his shoulders while he walked to find a deer he had shot.
As for fishing with Dad, I have vivid memories of packing up the camper he built himself to house us on camping trips. I recall driving with Dad and his dad, Popo, to lakes to fish, always intending to stay overnight. I recall that I always asked Dad or Popo to put the worm on my hook. I recall catching the fish, cooking the fish, and eating the fish that we cooked over the campfire. But I do not recall ever leaving a lake or driving home after a fishing adventure. Magically, I always fell asleep in the camper at the end of a day o’ fishing, and opened the camper door the next morning to find the camper was parked on our own front lawn, right outside the picture window. I recall always fussing at Dad at the breakfast table for not letting us stay overnight at the lake. Dad had to be away so often to work his bees that he really, really, really liked to sleep in his own bed whenever he could. He always said he couldn’t sleep well without his personal mattress and his personal pillow. Honestly, I think it was Mom he couldn’t sleep well without. Miss you, Dad.
Today marks 13 years since Dad left us to go to The Painless Place. I still miss kissing his bald head. The coyotes he loved to hunt continue to howl in the raw cold of dawn. The bees are dancing their various jigs in their winter playgrounds. And we’re all still down here just holding up the sky, and missing the old man who taught us how to work with joy, and how to love each other with laughter.
This pic of my beekeeper dad was snapped long before I was born. I’ve titled it, ST. RON OF THE BEES. I don’t remember what I was being punished for as a wee kid once, but Dad kicked my butt with his work boots. He did it so softly that only my pride felt it.
Five miscellaneous Ties o’ the Day, united by Christmas: A Santa-hatted dog adorned in holiday lights; gift-filled stockings; a Santa-hatted sock monkey bearing presents and candy canes; a bell-ringing Santa and bow-tied wreaths; and Santa playing a game of football against a team of penguins, with a reindeer as the referee. What a grouping!
According to the bins full o’ holiday neckwear I still haven’t shown you this season, I’ve gotta step it up if I’m going to reach my goal of displaying them all by the end of the year. Get ready for my daily numbers to skyrocket. I am determined to show y’all every piece in my entire Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Year’s neckwear collection during this 2020 season. And then I vow to never try to wear them all again. I’m having a blast, but it takes a ton o’ time to keep track of what’s been worn and what hasn’t. I feel like I’m juggling about 400 holiday season ties and bow ties all at once—because that’s exactly what I am doing.
[Enjoy this repeat of a “Christmas balls” post from 2017.]
Tie o’ the Day is covered in holiday greenery and classic ornaments: Christmas tree balls. I love these classic ornaments most of all. I mean—I like balls, in general. Sports balls, of course. And there’s Cinderella’s ball. And cotton balls. And cheese balls. And disco balls. When Mom reigned over the porch at my Delta house, her favorite balls belonged to our mini-dachsie, Vincent D’OGnofrio (R.I.P., Vin!). They amused her to no end. Whenever Vinnie sped across the lawn, she’d say, “His balls are so cute!” I should have painted them red and green one year for her for Christmas.
This post is sponsored by the colors red and green, and by the word “oh.” I wore this holiday Face Mask o’ the Day a few days ago, and I counted it in my Holiday Face Mask Tally. I decided I could count it as a different mask if I wore it upside-down—making the “HO”‘s into “OH”‘s. And who among us doesn’t say, “OH, OH, OH” here, there, and everywhere throughout the Christmas season? I say “OH” a lot during the jolly season—especially when I see nighttime light displays of exceptional beauty and/or masterful gaudiness.
