Alex's Asteroid Astrology

2024 is rapidly drawing to close, and the holidays are upon us!  Here, my TLS (short for Tchotchke Lust Syndrome, an incurable disease common to inveterate collectors) has kicked-in fulltime over the past few years, leading to a circumstance whereby the breadth and depth of the Yule/Winter/Christmas collection has swollen to such a size that it can no longer be displayed all at once.  There simply isn’t room, and the collection has had to be divided into three themes, displayed on a rotational basis.

With my knee replacement surgery last fall, requiring minimal holiday décor in the aftermath, and my post-Halloween exhaustion the year before that, leaving me uninclined to go all-out for Yule in 2022, it’s been three years since I’ve viewed the core of this collection.  So this year, it’s “Back to Basics” with the highlight on the classic red Santa (which isn’t to say there aren’t a few interlopers as well).

Of course, for a TLS sufferer, it’s never quite as simple as that.  Not all red Santas are created equal, and there is a special place in my collector’s heart for what I call “Specialty Santas.”  These are subdivisions of the genre, based in certain defining characteristics portrayed, as in “Santas with lists,” “Santas with reindeer,” “Santas in sleighs,” “Santas in chimneys,” “Santas at mantles,” “Bishop Santas,” “Santas with sacks,” and “Santas with pipes.”  And we’re not done yet – there’s also a subgrouping of “pencil Santas” (those tall, thin versions reminiscent of writing implements) and “dated Santas” (miniature jolly old elves, each mounted on a base marked with a date, purporting to portray Santa’s evolving image in the year inscribed).  I suppose we should also give a tip of our stocking cap to the inordinate number of Santa cookie jars I have amassed over the years, commandeering the dining room and guest room hutches, with a bit of overflow in the hall.

As a “Red” year, I’ve also featured cardinals, and again, there’s been a population explosion in these crimson avians, which, ill-content with several tabletop preserves, have taken to roosting in the normally all-white tree as well.

And there are certain collections which are on display regardless of the year’s theme, like the Santa and Snowman hinged boxes, the Green Santas, and the display of Christmas trees which I term “Santa and Frosty’s Tree Lot,” from the very bizarre-looking cookie jar featuring both characters which anchors it.

It being winter, of course there are snow and icicles everywhere!  And what would the season be without fresh evergreens?  Most of what is on display this year, I can proudly state, is taken from cuttings from my own plants on the property, with a notable winterberry assist from a friend, and a few sprigs of Bracken’s Brown Beauty magnolia purchased at a local historic home’s greens sale.

Despite the fact that this is my inaugural year in implementing the rotation scheme, and the Yule storage section, while housed in proximity, was not previously divided along these lines, things came together remarkably smoothly and quickly, with just over a week’s worth of intensive decorating accomplishing the task.  I easily reached my annual goal of St Nicholas Day, December 6^th, for completion of the house, but of course, this is followed by the inevitable week of tweaking to get it just right.

Nevertheless, the house was ready to receive my Yule Dinner guests on December 14^th, and if the stray newfound bauble or two has penetrated the shelves in the time since, I don’t suppose anybody but me would notice, amid all the mishigas.

No sooner had the decorating concluded, than the cookie-baking began, on this never-ending treadmill we term “the holiday season.”  I kept things minimalist (to my eye) this year, with just a half-dozen cookie offerings for guests, as well as a cranberry-cream cheese bar and a pumpkin-Nutella pie for the actual dinner.

Ham with a mustard-fig glaze, au gratin potatoes, dried corn, homemade cranberry applesauce and Brussels sprouts with bacon and chestnuts rounded out the meal, with dessert supplemented by nut tossies and apricot or poppyseed kiffles from local bakeries, my own cookies sent home in care packages.  The star of the dessert table was a Moravian sugar cake, a regional delicacy which is becoming more and more rare, comprised of a yeasted potato dough punctured with ravines of brown sugar and butter.

With my next knee replacement looming on January 8^th, there’s no time to take all this down beforehand, so I’ll be living in yuletide splendor until at least late February.  Which is just as well, since much of this will be hidden from my eyes again until 2027!

AAA wishes you all a Blessed Yule, a very happy holiday season, and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2025!