Nineteen Years Ago Today - Christmas Eve in 2006

It's Christmas Eve 2025 as I write this, and seems to be a good time to post it, although I probably gave this to Mark much earlier.  I still have this ornament on my tree:

And of course there was a little gift card to go with it, and of course he kept it:

This is the post about his gift that inspired this ornament:  https://abt-unk.blogspot.com/2025/03/march-25-2006-another-early-birthday.html

I wrote the following about Christmas Eve 2006 in my online journal:

Christmas Eve was very nice. We opened our gifts since we were going to be gone all the next day. We gave Eric* an MP3 player (Creative Zen 1GB), Napster gift card, and an extra set of Skullcandy ear buds, plus a couple little things (like a Tervis mug with our county courthouse emblem). We'll be going out shopping later this week, for some new (size 16) shoes, among other things.

I got Breathless all sorts of little stuff, some of which were things I wanted too, like a rain chain. I gave him his big gift back in November, a model ship** he wanted from the Blue Moon Gallery in Grapevine.

Breathless got me a beautiful necklace of silver and malachite [and painted jasper] with matching earrings,*** and a black Coach leather bag. Breathless got me a brown leather Coach bag about 25 years ago that I'd kept and used mainly for special occasions over the years, but I've been using it daily for nearly a year now, so it is nice to have an alternate.

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* My son Eric was visiting for the holidays.  We went to Austin on Christmas Day to visit my family there, his grandparents and my siblings, his aunts and uncles, and his cousins.  Today I'll just be seeing my siblings.

**  The link to the photo of the ship (which is also pictured in my last post) reminded me that one of my other gifts to him was a base for an old clock that had belonged to his father, which you can also see in the photo.  I still have all of these, and I'm still using the rain chain, although it's been moved to the left of where it is in this photo from 2019:

*** More about this necklace in a future post.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Nineteen Years Ago Today: Holiday Preps

This is a post copied from my old LiveJournal from Monday, December 4, 2006:

Dec. 4th, 2006 12:37 pm

holiday preps

Got a lot more done this past weekend. On Thanksgiving weekend (Saturday), we bought a couple poinsettias (red), a small tabletop rosemary tree, a fresh wreath, and some of those cinnamon-scented pine cones. I also put out some of the few decorations I'd brought with me (the stuff family or friends made or gave to me), so the house looked somewhat festive when Breathless' daughter and her family came to visit that Sunday. Oh, and I made some Christmas cookies (pecan puffs) for them to eat and take with them.

Above:  The wreath we got, hung inside the front door so we could smell it!

Below:  One of the decorations I'd brought with me, that my mother made.

I was expecting to be alone this Christmas, so had originally planned not to put up a tree until I could find a fake lit tree on sale after the holidays. For so many years in the Pac NW, my son and I would go to a tree farm and cut a fresh Doug fir. I don't think you can do that here in Texas, although I know there are farms with pines and cedars - I don't like the former and I have family members who are highly allergic to the latter). Nevertheless, Breathless wanted to have a "real" tree this year, so we bought a cut 6' Doug fir this past weekend.

He'd picked up some tree lights on sale earlier in the week (many of mine had burned out, and I gave those that worked to my son), and he also got some red rope lights cheap. We put those up outside yesterday afternoon (MAN! Was it cold and windy!), and it makes the top (non-brick) half of the four columns out there look striped, like candy canes. I'm thinking next year though we might put these on the back porch (there are only two columns out there, but we can double the amount of lights on each) as I think I'd like something a little more old-fashioned for the front, maybe some lighted garlands to wrap around the posts instead. That's something I definitely need to buy on sale after the holidays, as I am picky about how realistic the fake greens look.

He also got me a real (mostly cedar) garland for the mantle (which I have intertwined with some sparkly white netting), and when we got the tree, they gave me as many trimmed branches as I wanted. I think I will make those into some sort of swag to hang on the front door, with some wide red velvet indoor/outdoor ribbon I have.

Above:  The mantle with much of the stuff talked about in the post.  More in a future post about the painting, and more below on the plaque in front of the fireplace.

Below:  The door swag I made.

Today he is supposed to put up the tree lights, so I can decorate (with all the ornaments and icicles I DID bring) tonight. No hurry.

Current Location: lunch break at work
Current Mood: jubilant
Current Music: computers

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In a reply to a comment on December 6, I added:

"The tree has lights and ornaments now. Breathless picked out such a good tree (very full) that I am not sure it needs icicles. I had so many ornaments that I put some on the garland on the mantle, and will do a very small Pac-NW theme tree (ferryboats, various whales, an eagle, a salmon, etc.) for the guest room where my son will be sleeping. I also did not hang any of my bell ornaments - may add those to the garland (which has Texas ornaments) as well, or put them on doorknobs."

Above:  Eric with the main tree on Christmas Eve.

Below:  The small Pac-NW tree I put in the guest room for Eric.

"I've been collecting ornaments since I put up my first tree of my own in 1979 (a 3' one in Corpus Christi, where I had my first "real" job after getting my bachelor's degree). Now I really have way too many for a 6' tall, very full tree! I plan to give my son the ornaments on his theme tree (forgot to mention it also includes Seahawks ornaments - he's a big 'Hawks fan), plus some others, but I suspect I'll be storing his until HE puts up that first tree of his own!"

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Below are a couple more holiday decorations.  I will tell the story of this "Beware of the Trains" plaque in a future post.

Above:  The candy cane mice were made by my aunt, Sister Jean Marie Guokas.

Below:  I decorated the masts of Mark's ship with tiny wreaths.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Nineteen Years Ago Today: 2006 Christmas Card and Newsletter

Nineteen years ago on this date (which was a Saturday in 2006), I was sending out my Christmas cards (homemade this year) and the print and e-mail versions of my annual holiday newsletter.  

I don't have an exact copy of my homemade card, but I believe on the front of it, along with the words "New Degree," I included parts of the graduation announcement for my Master of Science in Library Science degree, as I think I had plenty of announcements left over from May.

Inside the card, I had the words "New Job!  New House!  New Love!" as well as our names and new address, my phone number, and one of my e-mail addresses.  I'd gotten business cards at work, so that provided the illustration for the job, while a photo of the house from June and a photo of the two of us from August provided the other two illustrations.

As I wrote to my sister-in-law June on this day, "Yes, I am one of those people who does a dreaded newsletter (since 1986)!  Two years ago I started e-mailing it to most people to save postage and to be able to include more color photos (expensive to print out) as well as links to various web pages, and now to my online journal."  The e-mail version (not pictured here) included the two photos from the inside of my card, plus a bonus photo of the back of our new house.  You can click on the images below to make them larger and more readable.

Above:  Page 1 of the print version of my annual holiday newsletter.

Below: Page 2 of the print version of my annual holiday newsletter.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!