293 Comments (chronological order) on the Christmas Blog in 2011

Twas the night before Halloween, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The Halloween Costumes were hung by the door with care
In hopes that Alek's Halloween Decorations would be there.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But Witches, Skeletons, Pumpkins, Grim Reapers, Frankenstein, SpongeBob, and Homer Simpson - D'OH! ;-)

With such as zany display, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be Alek's Controllable Halloween Decorations for Celiac Disease.
And then, in a twinkling, I saw the Internet control the house
The continuous turning ON and OFF of each little light and giant inflatables.

Alek spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Making sure the webcams stayed online and X10 controls operational
Ensuring the laptop chat-room stayed family friendly to bazillions of people around the world.
Plus passing out treats to all who came to his door.

As the night grew to a close, Alek sat back in his chair
The webcams and X10 controls started to cool
And as the display shut down for another fun year, I heard him exclaim
"Happy Halloween to all, and to all a good-night!"

In 2001, my sister got married and gave everyone at her wedding reception a nifty present - tree seedlings. I planted a couple, but only one survived ... and after 10 years, it's about ten feet tall. However, I "goofed" by planting it too close to some other trees ... and now that it has grown, they are all crowding each other. It would make a fine Christmas tree, but we don't do 'em anymore (surprising, 'eh?!? ;-) but I didn't want to see it go to waste.

My wife asked around at her workplace and WendyR said they had a good home for the tree ... so the next night, her husband Leif showed up with a real (STIHL baby!) chainsaw to cut it down - mouseover image to see him fire it up - RRRRUUUUMMMM!!!

While I held the tree, Leif made a clean cut at the base in about 10 seconds - note smoke from chainsaw.
I've asked Leif and Wendy to send us a picture of what it looks like decorated at their house.

Since I had some of the Christmas Decorations in the front yard, I turned those on and here's an image from the new webcam - click here to watch a time-lapse video of us cutting the tree.

Neither Rain, Sleet, or Snow will keep the Santa Heli from delivering presents!

Webcam captures Alek taking the picture above

Frosty has trouble busting out of the snow and turns into a midget!

Alek comes to the rescue with a broom

I enlisted my son Dirk to take this picture - he was a real trooper standing on top of the ladder in the cold.
Mouseover image to see closeup of me with my Green Buddy

And here's a side view of Santa skiing down the roof toward the setting sun.

Picture taken on December 20th near midnight with no moon but a LOT of light from the neighbor's display.
Same settings except 251 second exposure as seen by the longer star streaks.

Using the 400nm near-UV flashlight to light up the display - mouseover image to see shorter exposure which highlights the flourescing - would be cool to do at Halloween! ;-)