The Return of the Rest of the Offspring

Yesterday, while Rachelle and I braved shopping at Costco, Lowe’s and Target, my son, daughter-in-law and grandson drove safely but surprisingly quickly up I-35 from North Texas to Northeastern Kansas. They made only one stop, for gasoline at the southernmost KTA (Kansas Turnpike Authority) rest area. This is an amazing fete considering my grandson isn’t yet eighteen months old (that happens on the 9th day of Christmas next year).

Parents sleepy but Grandson wide awake last night

The consequence, however, of a baby who sleeps for about nine hours on a family road trip is predictable (see photo above). By early evening, Derek and Royna were dozing on our new sectional while Senna wanted to explore all the strange new environment of our home. Interestingly, he’s not overly interested in the Christmas tree or the presents tucked underneath. Rather, he found one of the Costco boxes to be endlessly entertaining as well as an impromptu piano lesson from Rachelle which introduced him to a new noise maker he could easily reach.

The Curse of the unChristmas Spirit Lifted

Christmas trees over the entry way of the building I spend more than half my life in.

I was a bit shocked last week when I returned to work from a normal weekend to see traditional Christmas decorations in the elevator lobby, including Christmas trees and presents. The relief was palpable. If you read my last post, you’ll understand what nine years of PC purgatory looked like. The vote is still out on the winner of the worst decoration (I’m leaving the poll open until after Thanksgiving).

I’ve been sick the last couple of day, and so has my furnace. It’s having surgery right now in my basement. All of this meant we had to cancel our annual trip to visit my son, daughter-in-law and grandson for Thanksgiving. I don’t want them to get sick with whatever I’ve got and I can’t leave my house unattended with an unreliable furnace. I guess I’ll get caught up on my early winter reading.

I wish all of you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. Spend quality time with your family and friends. I’ll have to substitute a video call with my far-flung offspring.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nine Years of unHoliday Spirit

unHoliday Decorations 2018 (click image to see all nine years worth of unHoliday Spirit)

I started this blog in October 2010, over nine years ago. I had blogged for a couple of years, writing book reviews mostly, on MySpace, but didn’t care for their interface. Once I found GoodReads (Summer 2008), I started writing reviews there and then when I re-discovered my love for astronomy, I needed a place to post photos and write about my new adventures. Less than two months into my new blog, after returning to work from Thanksgiving, I walked into my building and saw the most hideous holiday decorations of my life. I took a photo with my cell phone (remember, it was nearly ten years ago, so the quality sucks) and post the first of my longest running blog series on ‘unHoliday’ decorations.

To see all the lobby decorations for the past nine years, click on the photo above to be taken to my Flickr album.

For even more fun, help me decide which of the Nine should be awarded the title of “Worst unHoliday Decoration” by participating in this completely unscientific poll: https://forms.gle/mmUEnKRSvswL8MUf6
Jon Moss, November 2019

For the past nine years I had to console myself with the Country Club Plaza Lights, the Mayor’s Christmas Tree at Crown Center, the Kansas City Life Insurance Building and an annual trip to the inside of Union Station.

There is hope for my building as the Curse of the unChristmas Spirit appears to have been lifted and will be revealed in a forthcoming post.

Looking a Lot Like Christmas Around Here

As I promised earlier this month in my post about my building’s less than traditional holiday decorating, I managed to snap a few photos of some of my favorite things – and my that I mean Christmas lights, displays and decorations.

In roughly chronological order, starting with Thanksgiving weekend decorating the exterior of our home.

Followed by a drive by on Grand Avenue past one of the tallest Christmas trees in the country in the heart of Crown Center two days later:

I started off December right by stopping just before dawn on Broadway to snap this photo of the annual decorations hung at the Kansas City Life Insurance building:

A week later I made it to work very early, with the sun still below the horizon with the help of some cloud cover and took several photos of the Country Club Plaza Christmas lights from the top floor of my building (despite the reflections of interior lights on the window glass):

Another week passed by and on the ides of December the angel appeared in my landscaping. Due to unexpected altercations with local deer population, our lighted reindeer will be decidedly absent from our yard display:

And finally, and surely not least, as I returned home last night from work, I stopped at Union Station to marvel at their internal decoration bonanza:

20171220_154231 — Merry Christmas! (click this photo to see rest of album)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip around town, at least the parts of it I frequent on a daily and regular basis.

May all your Christmases be Bright and May God Bless Us, Everyone!

Merry Bowlingmas

Welcome to my annual roasting of my building’s attempts at modern art holiday decorating. When I showed my husband this year’s photo, his first words were: “Bowling pins?”

20171127_160137 — unHoliday Lobby Decorations (2017)

I had to concede his point. At least this year the dominant color is red with a swash of green.

Continue reading “Merry Bowlingmas”

A Deer in the Headlights

It’s not bad enough that my Texas trip was cancelled at the last minute. Or that I haven’t seen the sun since before Thanksgiving and that Kansas City is experiencing it’s fifth consecutive day of rain and drizzle (more rain today as it’s slightly above freezing). Or that I gave up my day off to voluntarily drive the vanpool to work because I believed both my back drivers had requested this Monday after Thanksgiving off. Surprise! Both of them rode in the van this morning.

Nope, it couldn’t possibly get any worse, right? Until I remembered as I got off the parking garage elevator and walked to the building elevators and saw this:

Continue reading “A Deer in the Headlights”

Looking Like Christmas in Kansas City

You can always count on Hallmark and Crown Center to pull out all the stops at Christmas time. I drive through the heart of Crown Center twice a day during my commute. The December mornings are especially pretty in the pre-dawn darkness:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/mossjon/93qF0V — Mayor’s Christmas Tree at Crown Center (Dec 2014)

Continue reading “Looking Like Christmas in Kansas City”

An Angel Appeared

Yes, an angel appeared in our front yard.

Thanks to a great sale at our local K-Mart, we snagged the angel at half-price, along with some LED net lighting which we will install later this week over our bushes.

Sadly, it got up to nearly 60 degrees here in Kansas today, so the snow we had this past weekend melted completely. At least I managed to burn most of the wood that had been languishing in our wood pile during our extreme cold spell last week.

No snow forecast for the next ten days, outside of some freezing rain/drizzle this weekend. Our Christmas forecast does not look like a white one.

These Decorations Make Me Smile

Mayor's Christmas Tree at Crown Center, Kansas City, Missouri — Mayor’s Christmas Tree at Crown Center, Kansas City, Missouri after the first snow of December 2013

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Decorations Making Me Cringe

My building continues its tradition of untraditional completely politically correct unholiday decorations. I came back from a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday vacation to this … whatever you might call it … ‘greeting’ me at the elevators:

I’ll have to see this ‘festive’ accretion for at least another thirty days.

My consolation though is my twice daily ‘fix’ of proper Christmas decorations when I drop off riders at Crown Center, headquarters of Hallmark.

To see what my building accosted us with last year, follow this link.