Merry Christmas; My Geeky Christmas Tree 2007

Merry Christmas!!!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas day.

Below are pictures of my geeky Christmas tree. It's a little skinnier than the ones I usually get, but it has a more conical shape than the nearly lopsided one I got last year.



The Star Wars section, front and center as always:



A mix of Star Wars and Star Trek stuff near the top (you can also see the Moravian Star on the top):




The Star Trek section, with Worf bridging the gap between the Deep Space Nine and Next Generation ornaments (Worf was on both shows):




The Spider-Man, Batman, and Kermit the Frog section (I think I'm retiring my Superman-related ornaments and all the comic book and Star Wars lunch box ornaments):



The North Carolina lighthouses and Wright Brothers plane section (there's actually one more lighthouse, but I accidentally left it out of the picture):


The angel section (these are the same five Hallmark angels on the 4-foot tree for my mom & dad -- see below):


Fireplace, Stockings, and Nativities:



This is a 4-foot tree I got just for my mom to decorate. It's mostly got angels to reflect my mom's likes (she collects Jim Shore angels). But, there's also a fishing jacket, work stepladder, and paint table for my dad. It's hard to tell but there's also a pair of small deer ornaments, one saying "Mom," one saying "Dad."

(Edit: Just to clarify... My parents and most of the rest of my family are from the NC Piedmont Triad area, where I still live. My parents moved to Morehead City, down at NC's "Crystal Coast," a few years ago, and they stay at my house whenever they are in town, including Christmas. Since they're here for Christmas, they don't bother getting a Christmas tree of their own, and since my tree is full of geeky stuff, I started a new tradition last year of letting mom decorate a small tree with ornaments that reflect her & Dad's interests, angels for Mom, home improvement stuff for Dad, and one fishing ornament for both of them.)



Over the years, certain Hallmark ornaments have become so big, heavy, expensive, or cool that I've decided to start displaying a few on my bookshelf year-round instead of on the tree only once a year. I'm guessing some of the 2007 ornaments (if I get any on sale before they run out) will end up here too.



Here's a little 2-foot, pre-lit, pre-decorated Christmas tree I found at an arts & crafts store in Kernersville for only $20. I love the blue & silver color scheme (which matches the blue, gray, and white in my kitchen -- although putting it on top of a red & green plaid tablecloth makes that a moot point). Couldn't resist it. There's also a 3-foot tree in the guest bedroom. It's the skinny tree I used last year for mom & dad's first batch of ornaments. It's not even lit, and I just threw some leftover ornaments on it, so it's not worth photographing. But, all total, I ended up with four trees this year.

Easter Eve in God's Acre

Yesterday, the day before Easter, my family braved the chill and wind to fulfill our yearly ritual of cleaning gravestones and placing flowers on graves of family members buried in God's Acre in Old Salem and the adjacent Salem Cemetary.

Unfortunately, because of the unusual coldsnap this year, some flowers probably died last night, and some were already wilting yesterday. A few people may have even decided to skip flowers this year. And yet, God's Acre is still a beautiful site at Easter anyway.

So, I decided to take a few pictures. You can click on each picture to see a much bigger version.

Lower Section of God's Acre (in Old Salem)


Old Salem is very close to downtown Winston-Salem, so you can see some of the skyline in the background. The white, round-top building is the Wachovia Center. The roundness of the building's top is inspired by an arch, a shape utilitized on many Moravian churches. I'm not sure I've seen it before, but I've read that a marble mosaic in the building's lobby is inspired by the Moravian Star, a prevalent decoration seen during Christmas.



In the background of the photo below, you can see the back of one of the buildings in Old Salem. I believe the rear of the building is an expansion since it looks so new. You can also see a parking lot used by Salem College, which is also located in Old Salem.


Upper Section of God's Acre (much, much older graves)





Salem Cemetary (right next to God's Acre)


In the photo above, you can see how close the public Salem Cemetary is to the Moravian graveyard God's Acre. Moravians use a standard, plain white, rectangular gravestone, and arrange the dead by age and gender. In Salem Cemetary, you'll find gravestones of all different sizes and shapes, including above-ground crypts. There are, however, some Moravians buried in Salem Cemetary, and many of them use the standard Moravian gravestone, including several of my family buried there.


Graves of Family Members

My grandmother, "Mama Reid." She and my grandfather are buried, practically in opposite corners, in the lower section of God's Acre.

My grandfather.

My great great grandmother, buried in the older, upper section of God's Acre.

My great grandmother, "Nana Land." She, my great aunt, my great grand father, and my two great uncles are all buried adjacent to each other in Salem Cemetary. Three out of the five still use the standard Moravian gravestone. My two great uncles have gravestones that look similar but are smaller versions to the standard Moravian stone.

My great aunt, Barbara.

My great grandfather.

My great uncles.

Merry Christmas!!! See My Geeky Christmas Tree.

Merry Christmas!!! I hope everyone has had a great holiday season and will have a great New Year.

I've been meaning to post pictures of my Christmas tree and maybe even do movie reviews of Christmas movies, but my holiday has been a little busier than I though it'd be. And, when I haven't been busy, I've been lazy.

Here are pics of my Christmas tree, quite possibly the geekiest Christmas tree ever (I collect a lot of Star Wars & Star Trek ornaments from Hallmark). You can click on a pic to see a bigger version.

Here are some profile pics of the tree. This one is a few inches taller than I usually get, but it's not as full, and it's a little lopsided with more branches on the front end than the back end. I actually had to tilt it back toward the window by a few degrees to balance it.

This is the Star Wars section, mostly in the front center of the tree. Hallmark has been doing their Star Wars line for so long that they've started recylcling some characters. So, it may be hard to tell but I have two Darth Vaders (one with lightsaber, one reaching out for Luke from Empire Strikes Back), two Chewbaccas (one shooting crossbow, one shooting with blaster with parts of C3PO in his backpack), and two Princess Leias (one with bun hairdo from A New Hope, one with Jabba slave girl outfit from Return of the Jedi).

This is Star Trek stuff spread out over the top, left side, and bottom-left area of the tree.

These are pictures of the comic book section in the bottom-front area, the angel section on the left side (one of the angels is blocking the view of Gandalf, and he didn't make it in the shot, but Frodo is right beside Gandalf), the lighthouse section right below the angels, and the two Kermit ornaments in the front-left bottom section.