{"id":254,"date":"2008-12-14T15:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T19:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=254"},"modified":"2008-12-14T15:50:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-14T19:50:00","slug":"ready-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"Ready for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/SUVmSwmT5fI\/AAAAAAAAA8Y\/iyQgRvsEZas\/s1600-h\/Xmas01.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 159px; height: 283px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/SUVmSwmT5fI\/AAAAAAAAA8Y\/iyQgRvsEZas\/s320\/Xmas01.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279738610631042546\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family:verdana;\">We&#8217;ve been ready for Christmas for a while.  My partner has a wonderful eye for decorating for the holidays.  I tend to favor old family heirlooms that I inherited, and which decorated our family Christmas trees when I was growing up.  My tastes, one could say, are odd and eclectic.<\/p>\n<p>My partner, on the other hand, has style and grace.  He likes Christmas trees to show some pattern of uniformity and symmetry.  He has gone to stores for after-Christmas sales to get ornaments of the same size, shape, and style.  For me, I don&#8217;t shop, and I don&#8217;t really want &#8220;same-same-same.&#8221;  I&#8217;m the kind of guy who pulls out an ornament that had hung on our tree when I was a kid, and will wipe away a tear as I tell a story related to the ornament.  I&#8217;m just a sentimental old fool, where my partner and Martha Stewart would have more in common when it comes to decorating.<\/p>\n<p>Further, I grew up with having a cut &#8220;real&#8221; tree every year, or cutting<\/span><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/SUVmYH-eklI\/AAAAAAAAA8g\/RHBvptR5zDY\/s1600-h\/Xmas02.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 320px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/SUVmYH-eklI\/AAAAAAAAA8g\/RHBvptR5zDY\/s320\/Xmas02.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279738702805766738\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family:verdana;\"> our own at a tree farm.  But over the last few years, since my partner&#8217;s disability has prevented him from going with me to pick out the tree, he has complained about how &#8220;funny-looking&#8221; and asymmetrical the trees were that I brought home.  Having had enough of his complaints, last year I put my boot down and told him that I wasn&#8217;t getting any more cut trees.  We went out the day after Christmas last year and bought a pre-lit artificial tree, which we put up for the first time this year.  I&#8217;m still adjusting to it, but it looks nice, and I don&#8217;t have to worry about keeping it watered or its dropping needles all over the place.  And it sure has a lot of branches for ornaments!  I miss the fresh-cut tree smell, though (and artificial scent sprays just don&#8217;t do it for me.)<\/p>\n<p>Our compromise, besides having an artificial tree this year, is that my partner hangs his symmetrical and well-&#8220;designed&#8221; ornaments on the side of the tree that faces outside, where it can be seen from the street.  I hang my family heirloom ornaments on the inside, where I can see them and tell their stories.  We are both happy.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the stockings are hung, the wreaths are wrought (I mean, hung), the rest of the holilday decorations are all in place, so now it&#8217;s time to get down to baking.  More on that in future blog posts.<\/p>\n<p>Life is short!  Show those you love that you love them!<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve been ready for Christmas for a while. My partner has a wonderful eye for decorating for the holidays. I tend to favor old family heirlooms that I inherited, and which decorated our family Christmas trees when I was growing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=254\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}