I think this picture just about says it all.

That’s right.  That’s our Christmas tree–this afternoon, not Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or yesterday for that matter. Let me say that everyday, well maybe every other day, we religiously filled the stand with fresh water. I did notice a couple of days after Christmas there appeared to be an overabundance of needles on the floor, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Last night, however, when I accidentally bumped into our tree, I was shocked when it actually rained needles. Although I hate taking down the tree on New Year’s Day (why make the end of Christmas week any sadder?), it had to come down today…obviously.  So what happened when I began to pull off the ornaments? Well it was like the scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas when all the needles fall off his tree when he attempts to decorate it.  I never thought that could really happen.  Of course I know that needles fall from dry pine trees, but nearly all of them??? That was just nuts.

I can’t help but ponder what our neighbors will think of us, especially once they see the naked skeleton of a  tree lying there at the end of our driveway waiting for the refuse department to pick it up.  I mean we must already seem pretty odd.  For starters,  the lights are on in our house until all ungodly hours.  Of course Giorgio returns from work very late at night and I wait up for him, then I write or read and before you know it it’s almost morning, but the neighbors certainly don’t know what’s going on over here.  Another thing is that we homeschool Jack, but, again, the neighbors don’t know that.  For all they know, we simply don’t send our kid to school.  Oh yeah, I recently realized that our blinds our quite thin, so if the lights are on inside, you can actually  see our images from the outside. The problem is that we dance a lot.  We do the Charleston, the robot, a little bit of Fosse-esque broadway, Graham style modern, hip-hop, tap…. You name it, we do it, perhaps not well, but we do it anyway.  Too bad we weren’t aware that the neighbors can see us.  So add to all of this the needless Christmas tree and we can appear weirder than we actually are. Oh well.

So here’s another picture of what happens in our house after the holidays.

I realize the image isn’t super clear, so I’ll explain. That’s smoke billowing out of our oven.  We had our family over for champagne and a turkey dinner to celebrate the New Year but we smoked the shit out of our house before they arrived.  Of course the smoke is the result of droppings from Christmas Eve dinner which landed and were left on the bottom of our oven. As for inviting everyone to dinner, we figuered “Hell, why not have the clan over for a gander at our needless Christmas tree?  It’s not everyday you get to see one of those.”

Here’s another.

Yep. This week we set up our backyard skating rink.  Unfortunately, we had a little leak.  No worries.  I am certain the rink will be up and running within the next day or two.

So there you have it.  The aftermath of our Christmas holiday.  Good job Nanni Family.  Here’s to another stellar year!!!

P.S. I just had to add another shot Giorgio took this morning (it’s now the day afer New Years).  Behold…Needless tree awaiting collection! I should feel a little embarrassed by this; don’t you think?  The worst part-it won’t be picked up until the 15th!!!  Until that time, it will sit at the end of our driveway, a stark reminder of..ummmmm…of…. Oh hell, I don’t know.  Anyway, enjoy a laugh at the expense of our poor, sad, dry, needless tree.