BY Liz George | Thursday, Dec 01, 2011 3:31pm | COMMENTS (10)
Christmas — all along downtown Montclair, just in time for tomorrow night’s tree lighting.
Not sure what I like better — the ginormous sparkly red ornaments (just don’t fall on me!) or the winning smile on the guy doing the hanging. Now, I’ll be humming holiday music all day.
Speaking of decorations, when do you get yours up:
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When do I get mine up? Really now, Liz! We put everything up after Thanksgiving so that my visiting in-laws could decorate the tree and help with the lights while they were still here. I grew up with putting the tree up as close to Christmas as possible because we left it up through Three Kings Day. I still miss the real candles on the tree.
Putting mine up on Sunday. Growing up it was always the day after Thanksgiving, but I feel like it’s less rushed the first weekend in December.
Hi all..I’ll be there Friday to video tape the Tree Lighting, and visit from Santa…Look for me, still wearing my Hat, and wish all your friends a Happy Holiday..video to be posted soon ( I’ll tell you where later )
Wayne Robbins
When I was a child shopping with my father for the tree and putting it in place occured on Christmas Eve. We went to sleep with a bare tree and the elves decorated it while Santa filled our stockings. The magic of Christmas morning was the wonder of the tree as well as the presents. I have deep respect for my mother who placed every piece of tinsel just right and worked though the night decorating and preparing the feast.
I decorate in stages. Outside lights glow on Thanksgiving night. Inside decorations are almost finished. Since I still want a real tree I wait till the week before Christmas to put it up. I’m listening to Christmas music now. It is a lovely time of the year.
Everybody say “Hi” to Dylan Blackwell. He works so hard keeping up with the needs of Downtown Montclair.
I’m going to be decking the halls with boughs of me through the weekend.
Nice memory, Dag. Christmas was my father’s favorite time of year. He became a different person, he was like a little kid. Early on he used to put up the tree on Christmas eve, like your father did, but over the years the date got moved back and we had about a ton of tinsel on the tree by the time the big day arrived. Remember that old tinsel? It was actually made of lead.
My father too loved the tree. He was a Jew who married a nice wasp from Minnesota, and the best perk of assimilation was the tree. He was not a mechanically inclined man: smart, and fond of the 50 cent word, he’d have described himself as “forblungent.” It’s my own spelling – I think it’s Yiddish, and I haven’t been able to confirm it’s an actual word. But it means you can’t really put stuff physically together well, which would describe my father with the ready-to-assemble wagon, the London broil on the grill, and the tree. He’d rub his hands together happily, saying “The tinsel makes the tree. The tinsel makes the tree.” Later, I would come to realize we had a middle class tree, with colored lights – not your all white decorator’s tree. I used to love squinting at those big ‘50’s lights to decide which color was my favorite. I spent one season sticking my fingers into the sockets with my best friend, screaming at the shock of it. Though I’d later forego tinsel, I think it really does make the tree, and I never gave up on colored lights.
farblunget: confused. Like in driving around without a clue where you are. Some say it’s running around like a chicken without a head. Whether it’s running or driving, you get the picture I’m sure.
Huh: I understood it to mean more like “clumsy”. Thank you — no wonder I couldn’t find it!
What a great night it was ..the Montclair Community Band played the Holday songs, the countdown went off just right..Santa heard from the kids as to what they would like to find under the tree, and photos were the thing of the night.
You could see the video on Montclair Patch – Happy Holidays to all.
Wayne