Christmas

Holidays on edge

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‘Teetering on the brink with no buffer.’

You know that your Spring Chickenhood has expired when you open the Times and see a piece titled “This is the Year Millennials Officially Got Old.” Especially if the “old” millennials of your acquaintance happen to be your daughter and her friends.

My Aging Millennial in my mind’s eye

Heavy sigh goes here.

It’s not that this is a depressing notion. It’s more like it’s surprising.

I’ve mentioned (well, moaned and whined) before that I don’t mind getting old so much. My late lamented Dad felt otherwise. When challenged in his later years to, say, get up out of a chair, Dad used to famously mutter, “Don’t get old.” To which one of us kids would usually reply, “Um, Dad, what’s my other choice?”

The Child making sure my Dad’s head is not too old to stay attached securely

Nope, for me it’s not the getting old part I mind so much. After all, Equally-Old Dude Man and I are still up for gallivanting around the world chasing birds and adventure. (See “Channeling My Inner Shackleton” or “New Guinea was a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience” for examples of elderly derring-do.)

What I do mind is how much faster getting older is getting. It feels like I’ve just scoured out the Thanksgiving roasting pan and stowed it in the hard-to-get-to cabinet on top of the refrigerator when it’s time to climb on a chair and wrestle it down again. (When I can no longer do this is when I pass the Thanksgiving Baton on to someone younger and fitter.)

And when I can no longer do this, I’m hanging it up for good

But what’s been really getting to me lately is that, getting-older-wise, I no longer have a generational buffer. My grandparents, of course, are long gone. But also gone are oodles of aunts and uncles. My Dad was one of eight; my Mom was the oldest of five. All are gone. Even Aunt Marilyn, she of “A Very Marilyn Christmas” fame, is now up there in the Santa Land of the Sky.

Aunt Marilyn when she was a buffer in high school

 

Even Dude Man’s buffer has been wiped out. I have lovely memories of his grandmother, Elsie. But that’s all I have. Same with his parents. His much-beloved Aunt Eleanor, with whom we were both very close, (See “She Put the ‘Giving’ in Thanksgiving”) slipped this mortal coil a couple of years ago.

Eleanor celebrates the Big 9-0. She would celebrate eight more

But, even when everyone else was disappearing, there was always my mother. Until there wasn’t. (See “Beautiful Swan” for some bittersweet remembrances. Or “The One Time Families Get Together” for an account of her memorial weekend.)

Mom, surrounded by accolades at her Memorial

So now here I am. Teetering on the edge, and with absolutely no buffer. Good thing I’ve got this instead:

It’s rather nice being their buffer

Amagansett, New York. December 2025.

 

 

 

 

If you see my sister tomorrow, please don’t wish her “Merry Christmas”

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‘Wish her “Happy Birthday” instead, and watch her face light up.’

It’s tough having a December birthday. Everyone’s so gosh-darned busy decorating and caroling and partying that they tend to forget that some people actually celebrate their natal day this month. People other than the Christ Child himself, I mean.

Like my sister. Her birthday not only falls in December, it’s on December 18. Which means it’s exactly one week before Christmas Day. Talk about atrocious timing.

Baby Laura. Not celebrating her birthday, but looking extremely cute

To her credit, our late great sainted mother would make an appropriate fuss on Laura’s birthday, as she did for all our birthdays. I remember that we kids used to say that “Christmas was for everybody, but birthdays were only for us.” Having a special day — with its attendant special fuss — is important in a big family.

A bit of our family hullabaloo on a random Christmas morning. And this isn’t even all of our family

We’d get to pick what we had for dinner on our birthday night — I can’t recall any of us choosing liver — and we also got to pick what kind of birthday cake we wanted. My Oldest Younger Brother Scott always specified a birthday pie because he was fonder of pie than cake. (Yes, his pie was adorned with candles.)

Laura and our sainted mom on her birthday last year

But back to my Favorite Only Sister. This year she celebrates not only an Important Big Milestone year-wise, but she is celebrating being a grandmother.

(I simply must digress here. It is nigh onto impossible for me to wrap my head around the fact that my baby sister who, in my mind’s eye is about eight years old, is now a grandmother.)

Favorite Only Sister Laura as she appears in my mind’s eye

Yes, Laura’s daughter Natalie has a freshly-produced bouncing baby girl, little Sydney. This girl is the spittin’ image of her mama and is already not only extremely adorable, but extraordinarily chatty:

I think she’s saying “Happy Birthday, Gramma!”

So. If you’re lucky enough to see my sister tomorrow — or any time this month — please do wish her a very happy birthday. She will love it. Just don’t add that you’re going to get her “one big present” for both her birthday and Christmas.

Amagansett, New York. December 2025

 

 

We had a little turkey this Thanksgiving.

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‘But there was more than enough to go around’

Sigh. It’s been a little over a week since we bid good-bye to Thanksgiving and waved a reluctant hello to the Christmas season. Which, god help us, seems to be getting earlier every year. Not to get all Scrooge-like, but I like to polish off the turkey leftovers before decking my halls.

No, this wasn’t this year’s turkey, as famously introduced in “Flipping the Bird”. But. trust me, it looked much the same. As did my outfit

This year we didn’t actually have any leftovers. Even though this year’s turkey was a whopping 23 pounds — oddly enough, just about the same weight as Mr. Baby — by Saturday there was nothing left but bones. (Mr. Turkey’s, not Mr. Baby’s.)

Mr. Baby en route from SF, settling in with some inflight reading material

Speaking of Mr. Baby (um, which I do a lot), he and his parents were our special guests again this year, along with Grownup Besties Jim and Phyllis. (Yes, that Jim and Phyllis, of “Caterwauling in the Catskills” fame.)

Mr. Baby hangs with Jim and Grampa

We rounded out our festive table with some local relations varying in age from a few months to a few years over 70.

We had more than one little turkey at the table this year

We “did” the dinner and the pies and the games and, next day, the hiking and the demolishing of whatever meager leftovers were left. (No sweet potatoes or brussels sprouts; just a wee bit of stuffing and gravy and a few shreds of turkey.)

Though, this year, the hike was cut short by cold-baby-fussiness and a shortcut via railroad tracks almost ended in tragedy when a train unexpectedly rounded a curve and almost eliminated our branch of the Whitmore Clan in one fell swoop.

Walking off the pies on the beach. Where we did not run into any trains

Except for nearly getting wiped off the face of the earth, this Thanksgiving ranked right up there with the best. As I’ve said in many a post, in my humble opinion Thanksgiving beats Christmas by the gravy boatload. No cards, no gifts (well, maybe some wine), no decorations, and, best of all, no carols. (Who wants to hear “Little Drumstick Boy” on endless repeat?)

As for Christmas, we are somewhat resigned to the fact that Thanksgiving will be “ours”, while Christmas will be claimed by the the Saskatoon Clan. It seems only fair, since there are scads of them. The Other Grampa has two brothers and three sisters, which means, for Mr. Baby, many aunts and uncles to spoil him and many cousins with which to create mayhem.

In the meantime, speaking of Christmas, we’ve got this year’s card nailed:

Amagansett, New York. December 2025

 

 

Beautiful Swan

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‘Remembering Mom. With a story or two’

Perhaps you’ve heard. Perhaps you’ve heard about it too much. But, in case you haven’t heard, my mother died. On February 16, to be exact. I posted an obituary on FaceBook just last week.

I can’t figure out how to share the darned FB story, but here’s what it looked like

If you’ve lost a parent — or even if you haven’t  — I’m pretty sure you’ll understand that it can take a while before you can attempt to be amusing again. So I haven’t posted a story since my last one a couple of weeks ago, which, ironically, was about my last visit to see her. The one where we force-watched some line dancing. (It was called  “My Mom Likes Line Dancing About as Much as She Likes Yodeling” in case you missed it.)

Our last *sigh* photo together on my last Mom Visit

That post was pretty well taken up with line dancing and yodeling, and I ran out of room before I could share some Mom stories. Which I have a million of, as you can imagine.

So I thought I’d take a crack at sharing some. First up is a story that Mom used to tell. It has to do with a hair bow and some roller skates. (Mom was somewhat of a hair-bow expert. She used to tape one to the top of my follically-challenged two-year-old pate so that people could tell that I was a girl. And check out her young fine self rocking a hair bow in the photo at the top of this post.)

I keep that photo on a shelf at the Ken & Barbie House with other prized possessions, like the tiara Laura gave me and drawing by The Child

But back to Mom’s story. It seems that one Christmas, young Mom yearned for some roller skates. I’m not sure if an actual letter was written to Santa, but she told one and all that she wanted roller skates more than anything. And, sure enough, come Christmas morning, there was a heavy rectangular gift-wrapped box under the tree with her name on it.

Mom and Laura admiring the last batch of Christmas fruitcake. Well, unless Laura and Dave keep making it, which they probably will, having had plenty of practice these last few years (!)

Her Uncle Warren happened to be over at Mom’s Grandma’s house with the other aunts and uncles and cousins. (I remember Uncle Warren. He was missing an arm — lost in a farm accident involving, I believe, a baler — and used to give us kids little cubes of Chiclets gum he would squeeze one-handed out of the package.)

Anyway. Uncle Warren saw Mom handling the package, testing its heft for roller-skate-content possibilities, and said, “Hey, I bet that’s the hair ribbon you’ve been wanting!”

Mom enjoys a laugh…perhaps at one of her own stories

Poor Little Mom. She believed her Uncle Warren — even though the box was waaay too heavy to contain something as insubstantial as a hair ribbon — and burst into inconsolable tears. But of course, the package did indeed contain her roller skates, so all’s well that ended well, Christmas-morning-wise.

A Christmas featuring large collars, but no hair bows

I bet about now you’re wondering what the title of this post means. “Beautiful Swan?!?” (Well, Angica knows. Hi, Angica!) As much as I’d like to tell you that “Beautiful Swan” refers to my mother and her childhood bow-bedecked loveliness, it is, in fact, a card game. A card game we played at Laura’s kitchen table on my last Mom Visit. The game involves bluffing about the contents of your hand and is actually called “BS.” Which, of course, stands for “Bullshit.” (And it’s an actual game. I just looked it up!)

Mom in a kitchen, but not playing cards. This is when she met the SIL

A player declares, for example, that he or she is discarding two threes, and the rest of the table has a chance to say “bullshit.” Which means you are calling their bluff. If you are correct, and the player was bluffing, they have to take all the cards piled in the middle of the table. If they weren’t bluffing (er, bullshitting) then you have to take them, the object being to get rid of all your cards.

Mom at Mo’s, enjoying some chowder. But not playing cards. Though she certainly looks like she’s just won a game

The game is called “Beautiful Swan” at my sister’s in homage to her friend Lori, who wanted to play the game with her young children without exposing them to bad language. (“Bradley and Kaitlin, I’m going to teach you a card game called ‘BS!'” “What does ‘BS’ mean, Mommy?” “Why, “Beautiful Swan! That’s what it means–Beautiful Swan!'”) 

And Mom was ruthless and competitive and very very good at it. Farewell, Beautiful Swan. I’ll be back with more Mom Stories as soon as I stock up on tissues.

Mom looking beautiful — and rather swanlike — at Nephew Phil’s wedding

New York City. February 2025

Joy to the world!

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‘The Grandchild has come!’

I haven’t sent out Christmas cards in years. Not since The Child was an actual child and I could send a photo of her enclosed inside. (This was waaaay before you could incorporate a photo into a design of your very own.)

Her Christmassy Childness, in former Christmas Card times

But I always said that I would start the Card Thing up again if and when I got me a grandkid. And, lo and behold…this year I finally did. (Do you think my subtle hints had anything to do with it? Like when I would look The Child in the eye and say, “I don’t want to pressure you, but, since you are an only child, if you don’t have any kids I will never ever be a grandmother.“)

So hey. I sent cards this year. Lots of cards! (If you didn’t get one, I apologize. Consider this post your Christmas card, okay?)

Here’s what was on the back (!)

Anyway. This year had a whole heck of a lot of other cool stuff to commend it: weddings and parties and family visits galore, not to mention two trips to Brazil and one big honkin’ trip to Australia.

Dude Man and me relaxing in Australia, basking in the knowledge that we finally made “grandparent”

But, since it’s the last day I can write and still call this 2024, I’m going to stick with the GK and the heck with the rest. Till the dull days of Endless January, that is. Then I’ll catch up. Or not. Maybe I’ll just read a ton of books.

Or knit. I have this sweater to finish up. Its progress was interrupted by baby sweaters, natch

But back to Mr. Baby. (Gosh, I think I just invented his blogname. I was going to call him GK. But I’m thinking I like Mr. Baby. Even better than The Baby, since if he ever gets a sister, I can call her MIss Baby. If he gets a brother, I’ll deal with it then.)

I defy even those of you who, like W. C. Fields, prefers his or her babies well-done, to watch the video below and then not urge those of your acquaintance who are capable of procreating to do so immediately. This is one heck of a cute baby.

I can show you this video because The Child created a shared album in iPhoto where she plops new shots almost every day. If that sounds like Baby Photo Overload, then you are obviously not a grandparent. Not one who lives a whole continent away, anyway.

I’m only a continent away. His Dad’s family lives in Canada — where Mr. Baby is right now, get celebrated — and acclimatized

Okay, I’ve got to go soon. I’m going on a pan-generational visit next week — to see both my one-and-only mother and my one-and-only grandson — so I have a ton of obsessing to do.

Meanwhile, here’s another Happy Photo to close out a very Happy Year!

Amagansett, New York. The last day of the last month of 2024

 

What do you call the father of your daughter’s husband?

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‘Other than a really nice guy, I mean.’

So, okay. It’s been ages since I checked in with you lovely readers (hi Sally!) and I’d better get a wiggle on before this year runs its course too.

“Enough already” you’ll be thinking if I start whining about how fast time has been whizzing by, so I won’t go there this time. Suffice it to say that I just put my Christmas-tree-scented candle away — and I didn’t get around to lighting it even once this season.

No need to put up a Christmas Tree; there’s one right outside our window. Have to go outside to sniff it though

So what was I doing instead of sniffing fake evergreen? Well, Dude Man and I got a snootfull of the real thing out in Flagstaff, Arizona, where The Child and her hub The SIL have put down roots.

Dude Man strolling around Flagstaff. That’s the giant pine cone hanging from that building across the street. On New Year’s Eve, they “drop” it

It’s a really fun town (cool shops! hot restaurants! wine bars! more wine bars!) and in the middle of a lot of Natural Wonders. The last time we were there (Christmas 2021, which, yes, feels like two weeks ago, not two years) we climbed down a mile into the Grand Canyon. (And yes, climbed back up.)

Me, looking determined but mighty relieved, climbing out of the Grand Canyon

This time, we “did” the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest and the Meteor Crater. After all that we were just too goldarned tired to make it to the Lowell Observatory. Next time.

We also did a bit of Christmas shopping. Here we check out the display of Cheap Plastic Shit (Note Child decked out in non-plastic Mom-knit hat)

We also hung out around the house, where I continued my Hat Attack by knitting one for The Guy Who Is My SIL’s Dad, otherwise known as The Child’s Father-in-Law. I love this guy; I really do. No sooner had I whipped it off my needles, revealing that it was for him, when he grabbed it and put it on his head. “I love this hat,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. (Conversely, my SIL, whom I adore in spite of this, took one look at his hat, thanked me, then dropped it into a basket of many many hats. Sigh.)

Mark and his son James (my SIL) not wearing their handknit hats, but looking extremely cute anyway

Which brings me to the ostensible subject of this piece: what to call this guy. “The Child’s Father-in-Law” is accurate, but not very snappy, though I suppose it could be shortened to “The Child’s FIL.” Nah, no one will get it. Then, as noted above, there’s “The Guy Who Is My SIL’s Dad.” Still no good.

Huge petrified log — and Co-Father-In-Law, Dude

I googled, and here’s the best I could find: “A father-in-law is the father of a person’s spouse. Two men who are fathers-in-law to each other’s children may be called co-fathers-in-law, or, if there are grandchildren, co-grandfathers.” For mothers-in-law, same deal.

They used to train astronauts at the Meteor Crater, hence the spacecraft

But google as hard as I could, I could find no citing for the relationship between me (a mother-in-law) and him (a father-in-law). “Parents in law?” Blech. I guess I’ll just call him Mark. (And yes, speaking of the name “Mark,” I did tell him the one about the guy at Starbucks who told the barrista he was “Marc with a ‘C'” and got a cup labeled “Cark.”) He laughed, which is yet another reason (other than wearing the handknit hat) that I like him.

Painted Desert and Mother-in-Law, Moi

Oh, he’s not perfect, by any means. He leans Libertarian (which endears him to The Dude), and, at one point, he regaled the occupants of the Ford 350 with the entire history of the iPhone which he read from the screen of (yes) his iPhone.

Christmas Hike: The Child and Me, flanked by two Co-Fathers-In-Law

But he’s sweet and funny and a great cook who cleans up after himself (see top photo for proof) so he’s aces in my book. I doubt if he really cares what you call him. As long as you call him for dinner. Or a new knit hat.

Mark’s hat during a rare moment not on his head (It’s topping a teapot)

Amagansett, New York. January 2024

 

Counting my cocktails instead of sheep

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‘Oh, yes. I have plenty of blessings to count, too.’

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, thank you. I appreciate your giving me and my measly little blog any thoughts at all (!)

No Namibia excuse. Not this time, anyway. For a real trip, read “The Four Seatmates of the Apocalypse”

Confession: I haven’t been anywhere (except maybe off the rails). I just haven’t been feeling very funny lately. (Well, maybe I’ve been feeling “funny,” just not “funny haha funny.”)

There’s the fact that my wonderful friend and shirt-tail relation, Aunt Eleanor, left us to go hit Saint Peter up for a donation to the Eleanor Whitmore Daycare Center. Eleanor: “What do you mean, you’re short of cash? What about those pearly gates, mister?!”

Eleanor wangling a donation out of Dude Man 

And, not as earth-shatteringly important — not even close — but all the Christmas goings-on can make me feel, well, melancholy. Yesterday I cranked up a Christmas playlist on Spotify and found myself tearing up over Dean Martin doing “Let it Snow,” for heavens sakes.

Sometimes opera makes me cry. But that makes me happy

Thanksgiving doesn’t have that kind of effect on me. Maybe because I’m too busy planning and organizing and cooking. And maybe the very things about it that make it (IMHO) the Best Holiday Ever — no gifts, no decorations, no carols — mean there are fewer “triggers,” if you will. Though the aroma of pumpkin pie can do me in. Maybe that’s really why I didn’t make one this year. (And not the fact that nobody but me will touch it.)

I mean, what’s not to like about Thanksgiving?

So I decided to list some blessings. Some things I can think about to turn those blues into red and green sparkly lights.

    1. Having a family I really like. You’d be surprised (maybe) at how many people don’t. I wish I had a dime for everyone I know who’s said something like: “Oh, I have a sister, but we don’t speak.” Or: “No, my father won’t be joining us this year. Or ever.” Oh, I do have a few in-laws who are not exactly my favorite people — if you are reading this, you are definitely not among their number — but we can be in the same room without bloodshed.

      I even like the Whitmore side of my family. Maybe not each and every one, but definitely the ones you see here!

    2. Not having to wear a housedress. When I was a kid, all the older women wore those. With orthopedic shoes. And support hose. Now we in the 70-Plus Crowd are clad in leggings. Hmmm…maybe housedresses should make a comeback.

      My mom is, fortunately, still going strong — and still has a hand in the fruitcake-making. Tho she does NOT sport a housedress. Or leggings, for that matter

    3.  Being able to boast that I’ve taken a bath with a cousin and an aunt — at the same time. Now that people have such small families — not to mention waaay more bathrooms! — the chances of this happening are slim to none.

      Rub a dub dub — three kids in a tub! Left to right: aunt, me, cousin

    4.  Not having to pass the lutefisk. True, I miss my Gramma’s Christmas dinners. (Even the time my Aunt Marilyn read about roasting the turkey in a bag, so she put ours in a paper grocery bag and it caught fire.) But I don’t miss having that big ole bowl of cured fish buried in custard. Yes, some people ate it. My Gramma and my Uncle Ronald, to name two.

      Yup. There was a bowl with lutefisk on this table. Gramma and Ronald (to her left) loved it

    5. Living in a city that decorates itself. I really don’t enjoy putting up decorations. (See “Deck the Halls with Bough of Holly” for my Grinch-like take on holiday decor.) But I do enjoy looking at them. So thank goodness we have plenty of done-by-others Holiday trappings to admire.

      I had absolutely nothing to do with decorating this tree

Well, that’s it for now. Gotta go get ready for a party. Actually, two parties. Which is another thing I’m counting as a blessing: that I still get invited to places where festivities occur. Cheers!

Nor did I decorate this tree. And I don’t even have to go to the Met –it’s right out my window!

New York City. December 2023

Time to undeck those halls

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‘Christmas is a wrap.’

No, I didn’t have to go to the City last week.

There I was, comfortably ensconced on our well-worn Amagansett couch — pile of knitting on my left, stack of New Yorkers on my right — when I realized that I had not seen the Metropolitan Museum Christmas tree.

That’s me, making like a Medieval ornament at the Met

I had nary a doctor’s appointment or lunch date or party invitation. My calendar was clean. But I knew that if I didn’t get myself back to the City and up to the Met, I would miss seeing the Christmas tree. Because, like almost every other Christmassy Thing in New York City, it would disappear after January 6.

January 6, you see, is Epiphany. Or Three Kings Day. Or the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Whatever you call it — well, except for the Day The “Patriots” Stormed the Capitol — it is more or less the end of Christmas. (Hmmm, I guess the Day They Stormed the Capitol was kinda the end of Christmas, too.)

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Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Socks

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‘The Child’s footwear phobia, conquered at last?’

It’s been cold here in the Great Northeast. Why, last weekend, the temperature dropped from 51 to 15 in twelve hours. But it’s even colder where Her Childness has been spending the Holidays. She reported twenty-nine below on Christmas Day up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where the SIL’s family — bless their rugged little hearts — is based.

Forget the frankincense and myrrh. Somebody bring the Holy Family a space heater

And what has The Child been doing every single day she’s been up there in the Frozen North? Why, running, of course. She made a resolution at the beginning of the year to run every single day, no matter what. And, by golly, she’s kept it. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet has kept her from her appointed running rounds. All year long.

What happens when you run every day — including days when it’s -29

I’m not worried about the running-in-all-weathers. Nope, as a Concerned Parent, I’m just hoping that she’s had an attitude adjustment toward socks. 

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Doing the math

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‘When the twenty-year deck will do just fine’

A couple of months ago I celebrated a large, rather alarming birthday. (See “Skirting the Issue” for festive details.)

How large? How alarming? Well, when people assure me that I am still “middle-aged,” I say, “Middle Aged, huh? Sure. If I’m planning to live to 140.”

Doing it up big on my Big Birthday. That’s The Child, who is now bigger than me. Partly because I’m shrinking

Nah. Let’s face it. I’m old. Even if I didn’t have that big number staring me in the face I’d realize it.

Because I’ve started doing the math.

Here’s what I mean. When we needed to replace our deck — it was splintering, it had holes in it, it sort of “sproinged” when you walked on it — we consulted with the Deck Builder Guy, who gave us two estimates. One was for a deck that would last thirty years; the other (cheaper) alternative would last twenty.

Dude Man and I didn’t even have to consult with each other. We both did the math, then looked at Deck Guy and said, “The twenty-year deck will do just fine.” Because, of course, by the time we’re 90, a deteriorating deck will be the least of our problems. And probably somebody else’s problem at that.

The new deck, juxtaposed with a corner of the house, which is being gnawed on by squirrels. Guess the siding’s next. *sigh*

The thing that really makes one’s head spin, math-wise, is that this is the second time we’ve replaced that deck. (Kind of makes you go into “joke mode.” You know: “How old was she? She was so old, she’d replaced her twenty-year deck twice.”

The Child with her Whitmore Grampa on the Original Deck. The one before our first twenty-year deck

Another time one “does the math” is with trees. I once did a commercial for a cholesterol drug that had this older couple planting a tree. (Interesting trivia: Older Man was played by none other than Rance Howard, who was Ron Howard’s dad and who was often given cameo roles in Ron’s films. He was the guy who delivered mangoes to John Candy’s character in Splash, for instance.)

Anyway. This older couple is planting a tree that’s, oh, three or four feet high, and the voiceover is talking about how this new drug could help you control cholesterol and prevent heart disease so that, basically, you could live to see the tree all grown up nice and big.

I’m kicking myself that I tossed my reel — the one with that commercial on it. But here are some trees drawn by The Child. Which will never grow old. And always will be there

(This was, of course, implied, not explicitly stated. The copy said something like, “The fruits of your labor should be yours to enjoy, even if you have high cholesterol. Talk to your doctor about new treatments available now.” The tagline was quite brilliant, if I do say so myself: “It’s your future. Be there.”)

Here in Amagansett we’re reminded of the Tree Effect daily. We have evergreen trees all over the property in various states of largeness. They are all Former Christmas Trees; some of them were originally quite tiny and fit on tabletops.

Naturally, in recent years we’ve started getting bigger ones.

But the best solution to doing the math with Christmas Trees? Doing like last year — opting out and enjoying someone else’s Christmas Tree.

Christmas in Flagstaff with The Child, her fam — and her tree

Recently The Child celebrated her (gasp) thirty-first birthday. Happy Birthday, dear Child. May you live long, enjoy many full-grown Christmas trees and replace more than two sequential decks.

Amagansett, New York. April 2022