Noel Novelties

Celebrating the holidays, with some adjustments for beloveds working through the aftermath of a stroke.

The skinny new Christmas tree fit just within the height of the living room atop the end table, with its floppy tinsel star topper skimming the ceiling.

After Papa Rooster's stroke, we had to make some adjustments to the usual Christmas rituals at the Mothership, but, happily, we were able to keep a lot of the elements of "our" Christmas. And, we even tried out some holiday traditions that were entirely novel to us.

Before it got its glow up.

We debuted a new skinny tree that had already been in the wings to replace the artificial tree that served the last few decades; it was a Sissy Buy Nothing score after last year's Christmas season. Skinny is simply more in scale with New York City living; even though the Mothership is a standalone house (rare-ish for the city), and in quasi-suburban, relatively spacious eastern Queens, it's modestly sized compared to mainstream American homes that host the vast majority of the tall and stout Christmas trees on the market. The skinny tree is just less intrusive of the living room footprint. And the old tree was starting to shed as many needles as a live one, so the skinny tree had been primed to succeed it anyway. That its stage was the top of an end table on level with the sofa, though, was a post-stroke decision to leave more floor space for Papa Rooster to navigate with his walker or cane.

How grateful we are that Papa Rooster is progressing, and that we were all in a state of mind for holiday celebrations, period. In some ways, we needed the holiday decor and normalcy to boost his spirits, to shift the focus away from the things he can't do like he used to - yet. 

The main gifts for him and Mama Hen (as in recent years past, wrapped in the holiday fabrics returning for repeat duty under the tree) were tech gadgets that will make it easier to detect falls and summon help; tips picked up from other sandwich generation friends with more experience keeping tabs on their own aging parents. A self-driving vehicle wasn't in the budget this year, but now that the idea is lodged in my noggin, it's on the back burner list for whenever one of our vehicles bites the dust.

The stockings were hung by the stereo with care - having migrated from the less accessible stair railing - but still staged near the backdrop of the classic televised Yule Log of old...

... opposite the skinny tree that still held my most favorite soldier clothespin ornament by Lil' Bro, and a childhood-painted Snoopy one, amongst all the other usual tree baubles, ...

...erected near the window adorned with the decades old Rudolph and Santa, lit through the evening late into Christmas Eve...

... after our Reveillon meal (we usually have Vietnamese)...

This year, in adding to the Yule Log, we had Carole and Paula from The Magic Garden Christmas, harkening back to the original days of the newly trendy again Gen X-cess decor with its fully saturated colors and trees and interiors. I mean, our family never wavered from that look; stick with something and it's bound to be fashionable again at some point.

Completely new for our house was the ginger toast house trend - less sugar than gingerbread cookies (sugar is a no-no for the stroke-inclined); I just need to figure out the icing consistency and get a proper tip....

... And then there were the sweet roll faux sufganiyot - this one worked quite well, and will definitely make a future holiday appearance. Yummy, scummy! 

So not eliminating sugar altogether, just aiming for less.

Going for all the fun, more sensibly and in line with what our challenges are today.