My hawthorn "Christmas" (outdoor) tree from 2019. The string of lights burned out, and I didn't put up the ornaments this year because without lights no one would see them. In the stores this season the lights were mostly white, and overpriced. But as you can see in this pic, the ornaments looked nice when the lights worked.
It's ironic: LEDs were supposed to drop in price, save electricity, and also last forever.
LOL.
The last time I ordered pizza it was a bewildering look into the New World of internet commerce, a world where you order first, and then you find out what you are getting and what you are going to pay for it.
The store -- which shall go unnamed -- has a website, with a "menu". Of course, the "menu" isn't like a real menu you get when you go to a restaurant, or see when you use a drive-thru window. Clicking on the item on this menu doesn't give you the ingredients or the price. It just places an order, so you're basically ordering in the blind. Awesome.
You wonder just what are these folks thinking? Last time, when I ordered by phone, it wasn't all that much better: it was $102 for 2 large pizzas, a small one, and some pizza bread. Delivery charge was $8, and then the local and state governments get their ten bucks.
Even more awesome. But, I'll admit -- the pizza itself was excellent. So there's that. :-)
Such is the state of business and commerce in the United States during the internet age.
But I digress.
DANCING AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE
Right now it's Christmas, that time when all families gather around the Christmas tree, sing songs, marvel at the gaily wrapped presents beneath the tree's sweet and spicy, fir and pine scented boughs, ooh and aah at all of the beautiful ornaments, and then they all have dinner together, and maybe play a board game or card game before -- or after -- exchanging gifts.
Of course, there are candles above the fireplace, elves and Santas on the windowsills, and a big, beautiful wreath on the front door, perhaps made with real holly, and decorated with ornaments, too.
Yeah, right. For many of us, it's a lonely time. I am not afraid to admit it, especially as I've said before on this blog that most of my family is gone. It's just the way it is. I guess I should feel blessed that I am the survivor, and I am indeed thankful for that. But it makes it rather difficult to get all excited and yippity-yappity about yet one more holiday that seems like another Day Of The Dead, because most of them are. Christmas is a time when I have to block out the memories of the past holidays where family members were still very much alive and things were well. Otherwise, it becomes a time of sadness.
Even the religious aspect of the Christmas holiday feels lost on me. It's hard to feel happy about Christ's birth when the greater world out there seems to be ripping apart with war, pandemics, people hating each other for what name they circle on a ballot, and other, similar stuff. I have several Bibles, but the only book in them I can read anymore is Solomon's Ecclesiastes -- the most realistic book of them all. Solomon, who lived quite a life, pulled no punches. Nearly all of what he said in that short book says all that needs to be said: Life Is Short.
So, anyway, I'm not celebrating.
I pet my cat, play my guitar, ride my bike, and do some writing. That is adequate.
Santa Mickey looks out on the 33F weather on Christmas Eve.
THE END OF THE YEAR, HOLIDAY SEASON
Overall, though, I'm doing as well as can be expected. My health is OK. I'm OK mentally and emotionally as well. But on holidays? Aside from Halloween, which is a time to connect with neighbors, I don't celebrate anymore, really. I don't imitate celebration with alcohol, either, as I stopped drinking alcohol in 2011, when I decided to concentrate on taking care of my health.
A pic of several boxes of Christmas holiday tea, most of which are not available in local stores anymore at Christmas season. Eggnogg'n is still apparently available online -- but they removed the Sledding Penguins cartoon on the cover. :-(
Who doesn't like seeing Sledding Penguins?
As a half-Canadian, whose grandmother taught me to drink "Red Rose" brand black tea, I drink Tea instead. This evening? It's Christmas Tea. It's actually quite good. It's one of those boxes of special tea that sometimes are available every Christmas season -- until the stores around here quit stocking them. Bigelow's "Egg Noggin'" tea -- the box with the happy, sledding penguins on it -- is one of those brands. For maybe 8 years it would be available in the stores every Christmas season, and it was excellent tea. I would buy several boxes every Christmas season.
Then they got rid of the sledding, cartoon penguins on the cover and stopped selling it in the stores. The Stash brand Christmas Tea (Holiday Chai) I'm drinking now is the same situation -- I bought the couple boxes of it in 2009 or 2010 so. It's not available in local stores anymore, except online only.
Great tea. Big seller. No longer available in the stores. You see a pattern there?
So, you eventually buy it online, or you learn to make your own. Just add vanilla, maple, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and maybe some other spices. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
SHORTWAVE RADIO ON CHRISTMAS EVE = THDDDDT
Anyway, I started this Christmas Eve late in the morning, just before noon, as I'd gotten home late from my aunt's place. My aunt (my late mother's sister) and my uncle have a big family, and there were a lot of them at her house on the night of the 23rd. I played my bagpipes for them, and also was able to reconnect with some second cousins (all Millennials and great people, including a couple veterans) and that was really quite cool. A couple of them are into the same style of music I'm into -- hard rock, metal, and Nu-Metal.
So we talked a little Slipknot, Korn, and Linkin Park.
After I got home I fed my cat and then went to bed. I slept maybe 10-11 hours.
When I woke up just before noon, I switched on my radio -- my Realistic DX-390 -- to tune around and see what was on the Shortwave bands, because -- as those of my readers who are radio aficionados know by now -- Shortwave is hoppin', because we're reaching the "Peak" of the current Solar Cycle. I then switched over to my DX-398, which has a bit more 'pull' on SW signals, especially on sideband.
It was El Deado.
This neighbor went all out. Brightening up the neighborhood.
It shouldn't have been, of course. After all, on the ham radio sites all of the guys with the massive G5RV's, 4 element Yagis and other big antennas with eight-foot ground rods and baluns; with their fancy Icoms and Kenwoods and the latest crap to go along with them, are all raving about how great this Sunspot Cycle is. Because, you know, they contacted someone in the EU a couple times and another guy in Japan, so obviously that means that shortwave conditions are awesome.
So, why do the bands seem so dead, when compared with 11-12 years ago? Especially on a holiday? Usually, holidays are times when the hams get on the air -- usually before or after their family functions. Sure, a lot of hams have other things to do on a holiday, but a lot of hams like to get on their radios on a holiday, too. I've heard a lot of hams on the air on 20 Meters and 40 Meters during holidays in the past.
YES, VIRGINIA -- SANTA WAS ON 20 METERS ONCE. FROM FINLAND
In 2014 or so, I tuned into the 20 Meter Ham Band on Christmas Eve afternoon. And Santa Claus was talking to little kids from Northern Finland (I think he was in Oulu). "Santa", a ham, would get other hams to get little kids on the mic, and "Santa" would talk to them. And one little girl in Chicago said "I love you, Santa!"
I'll never forget hearing that. I can hear it right now, in my head -- the memory of it was so striking.
The rest of the 20 Meter band was packed that Christmas Eve afternoon, too.
This Christmas Eve, just after noontime, it was DEAD. There were maybe 2-3 QSOs (conversations) on sideband, and maybe two of them on CW (Morse Code) -- on 20 meters, which is the most popular ham band. 40 Meters was completely dead. 12 meters had one or two conversations -- which was cool to hear, as 12 Meters seems to be a fun ham band. The fading was rather severe, but I did hear a guy in Arizona talking to a guy in Colorado.
The CB band, which usually is crammed full of signals when propagation is good, was relatively sparse. The strongest signal was from a jammer, some guy who was trying to fry his CB radio's final transistors playing the same echoed snippet continuously for over half an hour.
Even the Outband (27415-27600 kHz or so) was mostly free of signals. In 2012 27455 would have had numerous Latin Americans from various countries in Central and South America, all saying "Hola Once!" ('Once' is the word for 'eleven', as in 11 Meters), in Spanish, with most of them readable most of the time. This time around? There were just 3-4 Mexican-accented (Spanish language) guys, with a handful of unreadable, weak signal Spanish Outbanders underneath.
And this is the PEAK of Solar Cycle #25?
After tuning around, and noticing that the 25 and 21 Meter Shortwave broadcast bands were just as mediocre and mostly clear of signals, I switched the radio off. So much for the PEAK solar conditions.
Anyway, that was my introduction to Christmas Eve.
Later on, I went for a bike ride and took a few pictures of some of the local Christmas lights, which was fun. Here and there you could tell that people were having family dinners, but a lot of the other houses looked buttoned up and quiet, as if the inhabitants were in my own situation -- facing the holiday alone.
So right now I'm going to check on my cat, and go for another bike ride before the temps drop below freezing. Last night -- the night of the 23rd (known as Lille Julafton in Scandinavia) -- it got down to 25F. I think that's minus 6 Centigrade. A bit cold. When I went out to get my mail from the mailbox my shoes were slipping on the black ice. So, last night I decided not to ride my bike before retiring... No point is risking a bicycle mishap on black ice. We don't get black ice all that often around here. But I wasn't about to risk a spill at midnight.
But so far this evening, it's a hair warmer -- around 32-33F, and no black ice. So I'll ride, then I'll make a cup of black tea, and I'll spice it up myself. Gotta have spiced tea. After all, it's Christmas.
And then I'll do some fiction writing after posting this article. In fiction writing, I can make up all sorts of stuff about holidays. I can create a scene where everything's awesome -- the tree is magnificent, and when you switch off the room lights the multi-colored twinklies from the tree fill the room with all sorts of reds, greens, and blue colors; and all 100 small, shiny, glass ornaments make it look like the tree is loaded with light.
When you write fiction you can make up stuff like this, and make it seem real. You can recreate all the good stuff that used to happen when you were a kid, and if you're good enough at describing it, it can become real to the reader. I suppose that is part of what makes those of us, who can, write fiction. We design, with words, the world we want to live in. It's an escape for the writer as much as it is an escape for the reader.
I hope everyone has a good holiday. If you don't do Christmas -- and that is understandable -- I hope you're doing OK. Keep the head up. Every day above ground is a good day. That was my grandfather's philosophy on life. I think it fits.
I'll close this with the US 1960's rock group The Byrds' Turn, Turn, Turn. The song was written by folksinger Pete Seeger, and The Byrds souped it up a bit. It's from 1965, and it was a #1 hit. The song is a take on the book of Ecclesiastes, mentioned previously. There is a cool stereo version of Turn, Turn, Turn that I managed to copy from where I used to work, but it's not on YouTube.
And here is Eight Miles High. The massive hit that never happened, because some influential radio programmers thought it was about drugs, when it was actually about the Byrds' first foray to the UK, where they weren't treated all that well. So, many radio stations in the US did not play it. On both of these tracks (like most Byrds' tracks), Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker, electric 12-String guitar is heavily compressed, which gives it an extra shimmer to the sound of it on the record. Gene Clark helped write this song -- he came up with the title. I think it's the last Byrds track he sang on before leaving the group.:
Fun fact: the 12-String electric guitar parts during the verses were recorded backwards.
Listen closely. You'll hear it. You read about it here first, too, as I've never read anywhere else that the 12-String was recorded that way.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Peace.
C.C., 24th of December, 2023. I dug up a few of the boxes of Eggnogg'n Tea, and two other Christmas Tea flavors, and took a pic, and added it on January 3rd. Eggnogg'n Tea -- it's great, if you can get it. :-)
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