Alma's Got Me Thinking About Putting Up My Annual Christmas Light Display & Going To Mexico

Alma's Christmas Lighting

Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, sent me this photo this morning saying, "This is what I'd do if I lived in a house next to a house."

My only Christmas decoration is a little red stocking tree ornament my Grandma crocheted for me years ago.

I have never lived in an abode with a Christmas tree ever since I escaped living with my mom and dad.

I have never put any Christmas decorations on any house I've lived in. This frustrated my mom with the house I lived in in Mount Vernon, due to the fact that that house had 3 flat roofs, on three levels, with the edges easily accessed by simply walking out onto the roofs.

My mom could not understand why I would not put up lights. I think it embarrassed my mom that mine was the only house in the entire neighborhood of East Thunderbird not to have any Christmas decorations.

One year my mom brought over a big box of Christmas lights and told me I now had no excuse not to put up lights.

My Computer Monitor Christmas Ornament

I took some of my mom's lights and made a Star of David and put that up on top of the carport. I told my mom now the neighbors will think the reason I put up no lights is because I'm Jewish.

I don't think my mom understood, because she said something like, "Well, at least now you've got some Christmas lights up."

That is my one and only Christmas decoration, currently decorating my computer monitor screen.

My Grandma who crocheted my sole Christmas decoration has been gone since 1994. I can't believe that is already 18 years ago. Grandma's birthday was December 16. Every year this meant a family Christmas deal up in the Lynden zone, near the Canadian border. It'd be a combo Grandma Birthday and Christmas Party.

The year 2000 was the last year I had any relative interaction on Christmas. I was in Yuma for Christmas that year, with my mom and dad. Christmas Eve my dad drove us through Yuma's best decorated zone. It was warm, people were outside barbecuing, luminarias were all over the place, creating a cool glow.

Christmas morning started with 99 cent breakfast at a Yuma casino, named Paradise. Then it was on to Mexico, to Algodones, to do some Christmas shopping. That was a fun Christmas.