Took the tree down today.

[WA3VJB]

For us it is always melancholy when the tree comes down after Christmas.

So after taking it down and packing away all the decorations, tonight we lit a fire, broke open a bottle of red stuff, and are kicked back.

When we were taking the ornaments off the tree, there was one special one that I got this Christmas. Paired it up with the Original, and by taking this shot with the digital camera, covered technology from about the past 70 years.

The ornament has a clear glass spot on the back, and you can look right through to see out the clear "lens" in the front. VERY COOL.

Ornament, and camera, made in Germany.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Fire kinda feels like a pair of 4-400s running at full bourp behind a glass window, huh?

[WA3VJB]

More like a quad of 4-400s, no chimneys !

[k4kyv]

We usta use a cedar tree for Xmas.  When we took it  down, I would take it outside and set it afire.  The thing would flare up like a wad of loosely packed newspaper soaked with gasoline.  Finally that scared me away from using cedars in the house, which smelt good and were convenient since they grow wild on the property.  Now we purchase pines or furs which are much less flammable, but I don't get to enjoy the spectacular pyros any more.

Ours is still up.  I  always preferred to put it up about the 22nd or 23rd, and leave it up until well after New Years day, usually till the 6th.

I never cared much for New Year's celebration because it was always a depressing reminder that the long holiday break was almost over .  The time off was what I liked best about the holiday season when I was a student and during the  years I taught school as a profession.  Now that I am retired, I find the whole thing less of a treat, but I still enjoy the family get-together.  But now it's just a one or two day event  for me, and by the 25th I am fully burnt out on all the buy-buy-buy  Xmas hype and santa claus music that starts up earlier and earlier every year, now about mid-October.

[Jim, W5JO]

We usta use a cedar tree for Xmas.  When we took it  down, I would take it outside and set it afire.  The thing would flare up like a wad of loosely packed newspaper soaked with gasoline.  Finally that scared me away from using cedars in the house, which smelt good and were convenient since they grow wild on the property.  Now we purchase pines or furs which are much less flammable, but I don't get to enjoy the spectacular pyros any more.

We have a lot of Eastern Red Cedar growing around here and last year they contributed to the horrible fire season here.  On top of that they require about 10 times more water than the native post oaks that grow here.  So I have been going around my property cutting them.  I do believe they burn more violently when green than when cut and dry.  If left alone they will choke out the native trees.

[WD8BIL]

 

tonight we lit a fire, broke open a bottle of red stuff,

[K6JEK]

I'm with Don on tree timing for the same  reasons.     I have to fight the blues on New Years.   This year we went out to a jazz club in Oakland called Yoshi's.   Jazz aficionados will recognize  the name.    It turns out with Spanish Harlem Orchestra on stage you can't be gloomy.   It's flat impossible.

However, the ham station is down.   The big California storm last week had million mile an hour winds that took out both dipoles in the phased array.   No matter how clever and careful you are putting antennas in trees if the branches fly off the trees, the antennas come down.

[VE7 Kilohertz]

Hi Paul,

Nice ornament. That is very cool. Wonder if anyone will make a Viking Ranger or better yet a Collins broadcast TX like 300J or something similar. Maybe have a blue light in it to simulate the glow of 8008s. Then have a timer to change built in bulbs to a red one to simulate the 833's melting down because someone forgot to tune it. :-)

Anyway, I too do not look forward to taking down the tree. I usually wait until after new years, and this year I waited until I had Michael so we could both say goodbye to the tree and take it out to the skating rink for decoration there. It looks good and now has about 4" of snow on the bows. It was a fresh cut fir from our property and only drank about 2 cups of water thu the season. Amazing. Still green and no where near dry. I remember when I lived in the "big city" and bought trees, by the time they came down, just rubbing the branches together on the way out could have set it on fire. I took them to my clubs flying field and we had a burn barrel there and boy they sure went up like a roman candle. Amazing the heat.

Happy new year!

Paul

[WD8BIL]

As a kid we'd drag all the discarded trees up to the skating pond at 123rd St and use them for fires to keep warm. The cops and even a few firemen would stop and chat with us.

Can't do that today !

[wb2fof]

Bud,
Horse drawn fire apparatus way back then, right ??  !!

FOF

[WD8BIL]

Yup...... just after the dirt settled !

Thanks Bob !!!

Happy New Year.

[John Holotko]

As a kid we'd drag all the discarded trees up to the skating pond at 123rd St and use them for fires to keep warm. The cops and even a few firemen would stop and chat with us.

Can't do that today !

20 years ago you could have done that on 125th street in NYC and nobody would have even noticed

A belated but Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

ize