O Christmas Tree...

By Charmin Foth

After two weeks of having my tree up with only lights on it, I have finally gone into the depths of the root cellar of this old house to carefully pull out the foot locker full of ornaments to adorn my tree.

The day after Thanksgiving marked the 26th Annual Fantasy of Trees, a fundraiser for the East Tennessee Children's Hospital. It is a veritable winter wonderland of all things Christmas, especially the trees. With over 300 trees beautifully decorated by companies and designers from all over Knoxville up for adoption, it is enough to give any one tree envy. There are so many beautiful trees decorated with themes, and color coordinated to match any decor.

I know why they call it Fantasy of Trees. Every year I think, "Oh, look at that one, I would love that tree," or, "Wouldn't that be beautiful in our living room?"

But when I go home and start to set up the tree and begin to pull out all of my ornaments I look at my tree in a whole new light. My Christmas tree becomes a portal into the past. Each decoration reminds me of something or someone special.

I have photo ornaments of the first years of my relationship with my husband. When I hang those on the tree I remember the excitement of our relationship as it was just beginning to bud into something amazing.

I have ornaments from when we were stationed in Germany for three years, and all the places I had the opportunity to travel during that time. I have one of the bridge houses in Bad Kreuznach where we lived, one for each year we were there.

I have tiny wooden shoes from Holland, hand painted pottery bells from Poland, hand painted, hand blown glass ornaments from the Czech Republic, a tiny Eiffel Tower from Paris, France and a little 2000 from being there for the Millennium fireworks in Paris on New Year's Eve. I have a miniature coo-coo clock from the Black Forest in Germany.

I also have ornaments from friends and they remind me that friends are precious things, never to be forgotten.

So I may not have the designer, color coordinated tree, with all the fancy matching ornaments and the perfect angel on top. My tree may not be a shining artistic example but I have a colorful kaleidescope of memories, carefully hung on branches amid twinkling lights that I would not trade for all the designer trees out there.

Each ornament has a memory that takes me back in time, and gives me the opportunity to reflect and give thanks for the blessings that have passed through my life so far.

I can't wait to see what new memory I'll hang on the tree next year.

Merry Christmas!

The Count...

There are no children at my house, not that I need any, my hubby, Andy is just a big kid himself. Believe me when I tell you, the only difference is his toys cost more.

In all our years together, we never tried to have kids and at this point, that ship has sailed, and I don't mind. We both love kids, and are pretty good with them. I have always worked with the youth in one way or another at church and all of our friends have kids.

The kids think we are great fun. I have had tea parties, colored, made friendship bracelets, built forts with sheets, played games, you name it. Andy loves to play video games, and play pull my finger and burp letters of the alphabet, great boy stuff. But, sometimes I think our friends, the parents, worry when we come to visit.

As I said in my last post, Andy is the Duke of Inappropriate Conversation. There truly is no buffer between his brain and his mouth at times. When you don't have children around all the time, and you are married to me, you get used to being able to say exactly what you are thinking without any repercussions. That has always been one of my favorite parts of our marriage. We can truly be ourselves around each other. However, once you step into someone else's world you at least want to appear civilized.

I can not count the times that he has said something and a parent has had to say, "Andy, the kids." Don't get me wrong, I can be uncivilized too, I just try to hide it better.

On our last trip to visit friends in Virginia to visit friends, I reminded Andy, that not two weeks prior he had offended another of our friends by saying or doing something goofy that was not intended for children's ears. I did not want a repeat of that event. I told him that whenever he had a quick comeback to what someone said he needed to stall his quick response. I suggested that whenever the urge to utter something he thought was witty, that he count to ten slowly and think about who was in the room.

Five minutes after our arrival in Virginia, someone said something and I immediately saw the look on Andy's face and he began to count out-loud, 1, 2, 3, 4... you get the picture. I couldn't help but laugh and our friends asked, "what he was doing?"

I told them about my idea to make Andy aware of his surroundings. They began to laugh too.

Well, as the weekend progressed, Andy had to count many, many times, and soon the kids were in on it. As soon as someone would say something, the kids would look at Andy and begin to count. It was priceless. As soon as Andy began to count all the adults could guess the direction his thoughts were going and would begin to laugh.

My friend Amy said she was going to make it a family rule and apply it to both her brothers and her brothers-in-law. It seems that Andy is not the only "Duke of Inappropriate Conversation" out there. 

I think everyone had a great time with the count. If you have a "Duke of Inappropriate Conversation" in your life, don't get discouraged. Try suggesting they count. I recommend to ten, but if they are really bad, you may want to consider more. Just be sure you do it with a smile.


 Thanks for reading.

Hello Again Readers...

It's been a while since I've written in the public forum. I am sure I am a little rusty, but hey, let's see where this leads.

Since my exodus from the paper, I have had several people ask me to write again. It's not like I actually stopped writing, I do it every day at work, it is just a little different. Now I am the one sending out the press releases instead of wading through them to see what is noteworthy.

For those of you who wanted me to blog, I hope I don't disappoint you. I'm sure a lot of my ramblings will talk about my faith, if that bothers you, change the channel. For those of you who know me, I am who I am and I make no apologies for that. If you know me, you also know I'm not perfect and I don't claim to be. I have done many, many things that I am not proud of but I can only hope that I have learned from them. I may share some of those lessons as we travel along this path, we'll see.

Sometimes I have been called the Queen of Too Much Information so be aware that I will say things that may you may not want to know. I have tried to improve with age. I have been told that if you don't want to know my opinion then don't ask me. I don't that was meant as a compliment, but I took it as one. In any case, I will do what my hubby, Andy, usually does when he meets someone new. I will apologize before-hand.

Here goes. Dear readers, I will at some point offend your sensibilities, for that I apologize now.

Just so you know my husband is the King of Too Much Information and the Duke of Inappropriate Conversation.  He has a good heart, but there is no stop between his brain and his mouth. I am sure he will be the topic of much conversation. He is a great source of material. I'm just glad he loves me and knows me well enough to understand my ramblings.

Many people say I am too nice and I always look at life with an optimistic attitude. To that I say, I am diplomatic, not necessarily nice but I try. Life is too short to spend it angry, I'd rather laugh. As for my outlook on life, I have an odd perspective, one that usually takes some explaining, and that can make things interesting.

Well, I hope I can share some laughter and enough strange perspective with this writing endeavor to keep you interested. Thanks for tuning in and not changing the channel, yet. I'll post again soon.

Thanks for reading.