HOW many xmas tree ornaments?

SUMMARY: I have collected beyond my means to manage.

Source : December 24, 2025: a Facebook chat with a small group of people about our homes'  Christmas decor.

I have conceded defeat to almost everything. I did get out two table runners but the tablecloth and other runners and napkins and towels are still in boxes. 

I mostly emptied the largest box of ornaments, but it was weird because it was repacked before it was moved apparently by someone other than me so it wasn't all ornaments. I did empty another two smaller boxes – – meaning that there are still some ornaments left in there but I pulled out the ones that I most wanted. 

Three boxes of tree ornaments left that I haven't even started on and I think that's about it.

Trying something new this year: realizing that I have so many ornaments they will never all fit on this tree in particular and though I have a small artificial tree also, that's for small ornaments which I haven't put up yet, and I think I don't want to mess with the whole second regular tree this year--[deep breath]--Any ornament that can stand on its own, I have been putting them on my side table.

I have been halfheartedly attempting to make group them in related categories. 

First grouping is: taller ones to the left, shorter ones to the right (Mostly). After that, some examples:

• A couple groups of dogs

  some Victorian houses, 

  some humorous ones, 

  all the camping gear, 

  and surely you recognize the crew on the far right side with the necessary bucket…

  
  

  i'm trying to do this post on my phone and the blogger tool that I'm using is not friendly – – or else the template I chose years ago is not friendly--to phone use so I'll have to re-edit this later

  
  

  

  larger, taller ones

  
  

  

  Smaller, shorter ones

  
  

  

  Some dogs

  
  

  

  Some more dogs

  
  

  

  Some Victorian house

  
  

  

  Camping gear (old-style)
  also notice Snoopy as the camping scout leader

  
  

  

  Some more humorous ones

  
  

  

  Not at all wicked! Plus bucket!

  
  

  
  

Papers for my Heirs

SUMMARY: I'm trying, honestly I am…

Source : December 17, 2025 My response to a Facebook post about not leaving heaps of papers for your heirs like your parents did for you

[[Need to add tags and photo and copy edit. But posting now anyway]]

went through the same thing with my parents' estate. My dad left 11 large – – I mean large – – filing cabinets filled with papers. Almost everything was in a folder of some sort, but the labeling was random. If you wanted to look up information about their vehicle, you might find a folder in one drawer labeled Dodge, a folder in another drawer labeled car, a folder in another drawer labeled auto…. Somewhere I have photos of some of the entertaining tabs on folders that had three or four words strung together that made no sense to me whatsoever. He did not have dementia. He was just the sort who did organization chaotically.

I look with despair at my own home and I vow that I'm not going to do the same thing to my heirs, and yet, it takes work to get back through all the stuff I've accrued since I moved three years ago. Any day now I'm sure I will get to it.🙄❤️.

something I started doing several years ago as I began the effort of going through my file cabinets (I have only two large ones, not 11) to separate the wheat from the chaff, was to leave a large note at the front of each file folder saying something like, "Heirs: the things in this folder mean nothing to anyone but me. Recycle all of this." Or, "Heirs: the stuff in this folder might be of interest too [some specific name]. If it isn't, please toss it". Or even "Heirs: if you want, check with the Cupertino historical Society to see whether they want the things in this folder. If not, recycle them."

someone else responded to the original Poster:

Please understand...as we age, we lose energy in our days. Trying not to be a burden, we struggle to take care of ourself. Purging, boxing, sorting, taking away items takes energy we do.not.have.

If you want no regrets, go over to your mother's house and ask what she needs. No agenda on your part. Just ask. Then do what she asks. Then when you are left with the task of life without her, you will have no regrets.

Hire someone. Take it away.

Vintage Christmas decor

SUMMARY:  Yes, I have always loved Christmas decorations. At some point, I started being very careful with them at a fairly young age.

Source :  December 11, 2025 Facebook post while I am taking photos of some of my old Christmas things.

Speaking of memories… Some of my Christmas decor dates wayyy a long time back. When I became old enough to prevent it from being destroyed by myself or anyone else, but not much more than that. (Kindergarten plus or minus a couple of years?)

• The light up flashing Christmas tree: One year I and my next two sisters down each received one.  Did my parents find ones several years later for my next two sisters? not sure. I should ask. I'm also not sure whether mine is the only one that survives and functions. Except it needs new batteries this year. I still have the original box! Except the top is missing.
• The little glittery building is, um,  thick paper Sprayed with some kind of texture? It's a commercial product with a hole in the back through which you could put a Christmas light to light it up. It's missing a something, but it is still a little house with little [faded] shrubs and snow. I have no record of the year or where it came from, but about the same general timeframe.
• Sadly, the caroling Christmas candle met my husky probably 20 years after I received it. At one point, I had also found a female version and then I found tiny male and female versions that matched them exactly. I would set them out in the living room maybe on the side table during Christmas.He's the only one that barely survived the unhappy husky. I don't think I'll put him out on display. But I can't bring myself to throw him out. Hear that, heirs? If he were whole, he would probably be worth a few dollars. But, oh well. Now he's just wax with tooth marks.

Do you have old ancient decorations that were yours that you treasure? I do also have some things of my mom's or my grandparents' now, but these started out as mine and so they are particularly precious.

Head Bump/Memory Loss

SUMMARY: A little story about that blank space in my mind and my concussion.

source for this idea: Dec 9, 2024, discussion with another writer where a main character hits head and loses consciousness and almost everything about his life.

This story makes it all too believable so far! because it basically happened to me in late November, 2023. The first 10 minutes for me, when I first came to, were the worst--woken by a phone call from a number I didn't recognize but answered anyway. Male voice I didn't recognize said, so you fell and hit your head and lost consciousness? And all I know is that I am sitting on the front step of a familiar  house and my dog is licking blood from me (head wounds just like to bleed). Blood is clearly dripping down the side of my face. So I said, "uh--I guess so?" (did I fall? who is this? how does he know?) 

... turns out the fall-notification feature of my brand new apple watch called 911 for me. He asked if I knew where I was, and I struggled. Really was an odd feeling of familiarity without context. I said I think...I do. He asked for an address. That was a mental struggle but it came slowly out of the fog. He asked whether that's where I live. That was also a hard question to answer--it was so familiar, and I gradually remembered it was one of the houses I had considered buying 15 months ago. And, um, I think I bought it...  so I said, "I think so?"  He repeated the request for an address. Probably took me 2  minutes to come up with first the street name and then, wild guess, like I was pulling it out of thin air, a number.

That's when the ambulance pulled in. They immediately went to work on me, checking vital signs, getting me onto a stretcher, and asking lots of questions. "How did this happen?"   

Realized I didn't know. Realized I didn't know why I was on my front step. Tried to backtrack, had this distorted memory of a bunch of people discussing something inside the house about which I had to make a decision. Don't know what the issue was, or the people, or whether they also lived there.Tried to backtrack from there to earlier in the day, and basically a blank. 

While riding the 15-ish minutes to the hospital of course I was trying desperately to fill in the blanks. I was gradually remembering that it *is* my house and that I *do* live there. In short, no there were not other people in the house, And there was no discussion about anything. I wonder where that image in my brain came from? I started to remember things from earlier in the day and used that to build the day gradually,  hour by hour, to where I had my dog on a leash for a walk and was reaching for the front door.And then I was sitting on the front step, bleeding, and my phone was ringing.  

That blank space has never filled back in.

Still with head/neck support, right out of the ambulance to the emergency room to wait for a CT scan:

Sooooo there's my memory experience. I had 2 friends in recent years take bad falls, hitting their heads for concussions. Neither lost memory, but they both suffered for months with, yes, headaches, pain, irritability, confusion,  trying to remember how to do normal things, not able to read (could make out the words but otherwise was too hard), even watching TV took too much work to process what was happening. Trouble sleeping. Trouble walking. Yep, you've  pretty much covered it. I mostly had none of those symptoms, but realizing that I must have fallen somehow and not knowing why made it suddenly frightening to contemplate stairs or simple stepladders or rough surfaces of any kind. 

Me the next morning. In my hospital bed. Lacking sleep 
from all the activity and shuffling and noise etc.
You can barely see the wound--it seemed
like nothing so much as a giant blood blister.

I'm considerably better over all. Thank  YOU.

but here's the fun blip to this story: no more than a month before this happened, my Fitbit that I had relied on for several years died, and I tried to decide whether to replace it and if so with what. Since I already had an iPhone, I finally decided, With gritted teeth, to shell out For an Apple Watch. I spent some time setting up a bunch of things, including my medical information and my emergency contact information and whatever else seemed important.

Turns out that whenever you have a sharp shock to the watch – – such as If you fall on a hard surface (Or slam your hand hard down on a table for emphasis, I discovered later) It automatically Sounds a little alarm on the watch and if you don't respond to it within a certain time, it calls local emergency, as in 911. 

It also calls all your emergency contacts. That revealed a mistake in my set up: I put almost all my relatives in as emergency contacts, so several people from all over the West Coast were calling to try to find out what was happening. After that, I limited it to just a couple of people.

I kept thinking, what if I had just bought a Fitbit again? Which, as far as I know, has no capability like the Apple Watch. it was a cold winters evening and I was on a cul-de-sac without much in-and-out activity from the neighbors. I wasn't dressed to sit or lie around in cold weather; I had a light jacket because I was taking the dog for a walk. What would've happened then? 

I seem to have suffered no long-term effects. There are probably some, because I did have a concussion that they were worried about, which is why the initial hospital put me in to the life flight helicopter and flew me to the head-trauma center on the other side of Puget sound. But I don't notice any Lingering effects. Even at the time.

Just the missing 10 or 15 minutes in which I fell.

It was a bummer that my first helicopter ride was with me strapped down while my glasses were in a bag elsewhere in the helicopter And all the lovely views that I would've gotten were just big blurs out the window. Oh well, I'll have to find a safer way to get a helicopter ride.

In I go. Spent One day, two nights here.
 In general it was an excellent experience.

BUT WAIT! HERE'S ANOTHER FUN POINT: Earlier that day, I had told my sister that I discovered that the local senior center had a "balance class" and that I figured I ought to start going the next morning. That was my plan. I didn't really need to have an accident to prove that maybe I needed it. Grumble grumble. I did start the class eventually after I was fairly recovered. And it has helped immensely.