One of those pinecones in the pics from yesterday is an oldie from my childhood, and was one of the few ornaments to survive "the incident" - the time when Mom told me to crawl behind the tree and plug it in, and the son-of-a-gun shocked the living daylights out of me...which of course, made me jump...which of course, knocked the tree off balance. I'm surprised Mom was even willing to pass one of those pinecones on to me, 'cause I'm fairly certain she still holds a grudge about all the ornaments that were lost that year. Like it was my fault that Dad probably did his usual thing of splicing and duct-taping a humongous wad of plugs together, in order to fit a thousand plugs into a single outlet? I mean, really now!
Anyhoo, I always loved those pinecones, and the way they had a bit of snow on the tip of each shingle-like doohicky, but I never really thought about collecting them until one year when I went on the Christmas home tour in the Historic Heights area of Houston. What a blast! They hold it at night, so you can enjoy the magic of all the twinkle lights, and old-timey trollies do a continual round of all the houses on the tour, so you can just hop on and off at your leisure. In the end, everyone winds up back at the old firehouse, for refreshments and the annual charity wreath auction. Each of the local merchants would contribute one, and that chicken wreath above is one of the many that Buchanan's contributed over the years, made by yours truly.
This particular year, there was one precious little bungalow that had been entirely decorated in nothing but pinecones. It was amazing - the owner must have bought dozens every year for 30 or 40 years! A bit over the top for my taste, but maybe one new one per year would be nice, don't you think? But none of the expensive ones for me, thank you very much. I don't plan to hold any grudges, if somebody accidentally knocks my tree over one of these days!
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