*Tour-ette on chasing the mid-Winter blues away! 1/17/2024

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*Tour-ette on the first snowy day of the New Year! YAY!! 1/16/2024

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From Sybil Bruncheon's (Not So) Merry Memoirs:

I wish there was a less grim aftermath for Christmas.... I always dread this part of the celebrations. When the trees first start appearing at the street-corner lots lit by strings of bare light bulbs draped mock-gayly between street lamps and parking signs. Salesmen/tree choppers manning their vans and coffee thermoses through the night while their trees of all sizes and varieties lean against each other, stacked and bound with twine til they're examined, and either chosen or rejected for purchase. Little spruces perhaps only a year or two old resting against grand firs of maybe 30 years.... all of them cut down for the ultimate sin; being beautiful.

I know "they're grown for harvesting"..... I know "they're recycled" or "used for mulching".... but I have always, always been haunted by the Hans Christian Andersen story of "The Fir-Tree"... and the end of the story. My parents gayly read the fairy tale to me on Christmas eve, and then that last paragraph... I remember that I was convulsed (literally!), and inconsolable... and they were stunned at my reaction. They never looked at me the same way again... because I was no longer a simple child... with a child's simple sensibilities.

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*Tour-ette on a beautiful Christmas morning from Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania (part 4) 12/25/2023

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*Tour-ette on a beautiful Christmas morning from Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania (part 3) 12/25/2023

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*Tour-ette on a beautiful Christmas morning from Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania (part 2) 12/25/2023

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*Tour-ette on a beautiful Christmas morning from Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania (part 1) 12/25/2023

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*Tour-ette of this year's Christmas tree right before the Holiday! Last-minute scrambling! 12/23/2023

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "A Few Of My Favorite Things!"...

Did I ever show you my child's camping set?... when I was little, my extraordinary Grandmother insisted that if I was to be sent away for the Summer (Camp Goomy-ma-Goochie... in the Catskills! Do you know it?) that I was to maintain "the sophisticated and civilized niceties that we had been raised in"... her words exactly. She had this special camping set made for me in sterling silver; yes, that's the traditional Army tray, sterling fork and spoon in Georg Jensen "Pyramid", and a sterling salt and pepper set in cobalt glass with a little "Pyramid" salt spoon. And no! There's no knife... apparently I had threatened some child who claimed that the whole thing was only silver-plate! SILVER-PLATE! Me! Can you imagine??... with MY grandmother! I kicked HIS ass...

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"...

...lovely... as a child I found a box of Golden Guides once: they included "Recipes From The Donner Party", "Driving Nails Safely With Only Grandma's Fine China", and "Oblong Vegetables and First Aid for Internal Injuries"... I found out later that the box belonged to my Uncle Filbert... who lived in a sod-house outside of town...

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