From the depths of Dad's camera

At my Dad's house, Christmas Eve means two traditions: A) Eating trout with the head still attached so the cloudy, baked eyes of said fish can look at you accusingly, questioning your soul as to how you could snuff out its little fishy life for a mere meal ...
And B) Putting up the Christmas Tree.
It always seemed kind of tardy to me, putting up the tree the night before Christmas. It should be up weeks before, so you can look at all of the presents under the tree, then surreptitiously open a couple and re-wrap them before anyone noticed. I mean, putting up the tree on Xmas eve means that Christmas is OVER the next day. It's not a New Years' Eve tree, is it?
Anyways, you'll notice that our tree is what you would call a "Charlie Brown" tree. It's kind of small, somewhat tilted, and generally pathetic. It's another tradition that harkens back to my younger teenage years. I had planted a couple seedlings as part of a course I was in (herbology, science, bio, I can't remember), and they thrived and grew tall. Then one year I returned home for the holidays, and noticed one of them was conspicuously missing.
And then I saw it - hacked down, brutalized, and practically crucified in the living room; our Christmas Tree for that year.
It was terribly traumatizing, to see something you nurtured from a mere seedling get senselessly killed like that. It was a bit sparse, true, but it was MY tree. The next year, despite my picketing and demonstrating on a soapbox, my other child suffered the same fate.
But we've had small trees ever since then. I think my dad does it just to rub it in.
So here's some pics: me, my sis and pops....

The decorating begins...


The annual mounting of the Santa-In-A-Plane decoration. Note my sister's loving expression...


This is how we do ...


Note my pops' eyes. The crazy eyes. This is called the "Holiday Spirit."


Pops n' sis


The crowning touch: Our decades-old, handmade, barbie-doll angel.


I had to add this last photo, or I'm sure every one of my family members would have called me on it. My pops n stepmom have created their own little Christmas tradition. It's called "I'm buying Jake some ugly-ass underwear." This year, it was a Canadian Beaver underwear. In the past, I've gotten glow-in-the-dark golf-ball boxers, fishy boxers and lady-bug boxers. And they wonder why they don't have any grand-kids? Women run outta the house as fast as they can once the jeans get dropped... So it's your fault, D+M. Don't blame me....



And I just had to add this. I'm sweating profusely right now...