Per my Holiday tradition, here is our annual Christmas card. This is the 22nd year that I've made my own card. It all started in 1997 while I was sailing on USNS Surveillance ships (after I had retired from the Navy), and it WOULD have been 23 STRAIGHT years but I missed 2008. I was actually at sea on my FIRST ship ever when I made the first card (pretty rare for a retired Navy guy to have ZERO sea-days when he retires...but the job/career I chose when I was 17 and signed up for as a High School Senior looking to get OUT of Helena Montana ended up being island/shore based, and that was that). I created my card using Microsoft Publisher, and then printed out about 80 copies on my OH-SO-VERY-SLOW Canon BJC80 inkjet printer (did I mention that it was SLOW?), and then I used the same printer to make all the envelopes (this printing all took me about 3 days...but I was on a ship at sea, only working 8 hours a day, time was ONE thing I had plenty of). I was able to buy stamps in our ships store, and when he hit port about 2 weeks before Christmas (in Yokohoma Japan, my ships home-port) I got them all in the mail down at the USPS located in the US Naval Station Yokosuka Japan (about 30 minutes south of Yokohama by train). I kept up the tradition every year after that while on the ships. I left my final ship in late 2003 and came back home to Jeannie for good right here in Santa Maria CA where we still live today
And so....without further adieu, our Christmas Card 2018.
And so...another year has come and gone. Christmas is HERE! I hope this finds everyone in the Asylum healthy and happy (what else is there to wish for someone?)
Merry Christmas my friends, and I hope you have a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(oh, and everybody is always asking me for pictures of my house lights...so here is a panorama I made of our house along with our neighbors Louie & Anna's house...we always put up our lights complementing each other, and love the GLOW that comes from our 2 houses).
So here you go...our 2018 lights (my house is on the right, that's Super Frosty just about in the middle, and Louies on the left. If you think that Louies lights look VERY similar to mine, it's likely becasue I've given him most of the lights on his house over the years as they were extra's and just sitting in my attic...they are MUCH better being put out and lit IMO).
I look forward to your "Christmas card" every year! And I LOVE seeing your lights! Did you watch any of the 'Great Christmas Light Fight' on TV this year? One week's episode was a compilation show of the top houses of the 1st 5 years of the show & if you only see one episode, that would be a good one!
ReplyDeleteSorry that I've been absent the past few weeks; December has turned out to NOT be a good month. Bad ending for a horrible year I guess. I only work another hour today & then I'm going "home" for Xmas. I'll be staying at my younger sister's house on the farm till Wed morning. Keep your fingers crossed for me that this year's Xmas is better than last.
Very few of the houses on my street put up any lights this year. I never have because I just can't do it but I look forward to everyone else's & this year my entire neighborhood looks dark!
I've been doing my now annual Xmas tradition of watching as many Xmas TV-movies as there are hours at night & weekends since Nov 1st & I think I MIGHT have overdone it as I'm about to burst! The one good thing about watching too many of these movies is that you actually look forward to the end of the holiday season & don't get sad about it! :)
What are your Xmas plans, Matt & Rae? And New Year's?
And if you ever have any free time Matt, I'd love to hear more about your life in the Navy & afterwards on the ships. How long were you at sea at a time? And you probably wrote about this before, but why did you decide to leave the Navy when you did? Did you like being at sea? What were your favorite ports?
Hey, have Sophie & Abbey seen that Walmart online shopping & delivery commercial with the dog going to "answer" the doorbell & the next time you see him, he's in some new Xmas finery? A festive collar, then antlers, then an Xmas sweater & then Xmas booties. I LOVE that commercial, it makes me smile every time I see the dog jump/gallop/slide to the door when the bell rings & another box is delivered! :)
Well, I guess I have to wrap up a few things before I get out of here.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, MATT, RAE & to all who hang at IA! :)
Hey Susie, hope you have (had) a wonderful Christmas! So very sorry 2018 has been so horrible...it was a rough year for me as well (lost my step-mom in April, my Mom in June, then my stepdad just passed Dec 23rd...only my Dad is alive now). Speaking of my Dad, Im typing this in my room in Pahrump (NV)...he is in Las Vegas living in an assisted care facility. Healthwise hes doing pretty good...but his short term memory is about that of a goldfish...pretty hard to watch (and an hour car drive has him asking the same things over and over...and he has lots of things he believes to be true that arent...dementia is not pretty).
DeleteHeading back home tomorrow (Friday)...this was just a short trip (came over on the 26th, back home on 29th).
Ive never seen the Great Xmas Light Fight...(never heard of it actually). I just like our house to be LIT UP...always have. I have some bike riding to do over the rest of my Holiday break...including a New Years ride on the 1st...that will be fun, a lot of people I don't see very often show up.
Also have never seen the Walmart commercial..will have to keep my eyes open for it, sounds hilarious. Will also make sure Sophie and Abbey do NOT have access to our credit card #s!
Anyway...Happy New Year Susie and Rae! Hope 2019 is a great year for all of us....we can use it! (dont even want to talk about my 401k...yikes! Good thing I have a few years to recover).
Later Gaters! (speaking of Gaters, my Wolverines play the Gators on Saturday...hopefully the defense will actually be AT the game unlike their last uhm, game. I see Wisconsin did good today and whipped the OTHER Florida team (sorry Steve...your Hurricanes were pretty much brought down to maybe a dust-devil today...I feel your pain tho, still licking my wounds from that OSU debacle!)