Holt Family Christmas Tree: First Forty Years

Fran and I spent our first Christmas with our families. This was 1967 and we had only been married for one week. Since then we have had children or grandchildren at our home each and every year. A significant portion of our limited garage storage area is dedicated to our indoor Christmas decorations. This includes lights, candles, knick knacks, over twenty nativity scenes, ornaments, a Christmas village, candles, animated dolls, wreaths – everything we have acquired and saved that are part of Christmas in our home. We have always had a cut Christmas tree in our home. For many years we traveled up north to select and chop down our tree at Whalen's Tree Farm near Millbrook, NY. This event with as many children and grandchildren that were around, usually took place the Friday after Thanksgiving and more times than not included the Purcell family. A lunch at a diner always followed this trek.


Even the two years we spent in Puerto Rico did not stop Fran from finding a "fresh" cut tree. She would go to the docks in Cataño and find a container ship that had unloaded fresh (sort of frozen) trees shipped down from Maine. Our present home at Valeria has fourteen foot ceilings. This year we have a nine foot tree, but we have had trees up to twelve feet tall the past few years. We had to sign an insurance waiver when we went to decorate the taller trees!

This year we had friends over to help us decorate the tree. I unwrapped and handed out the ornaments to our invited elves. As I handled each ornaments, the memory and/or story of each came to mind. I will take you on a picture tour of some of our forty years of Christmas tree ornaments.

Some of the ornaments were purchased while on vacations.

Jim and Susan are former neighbors and they now have their home on Grand Cayman Island.

This Saint Bridget's cross is from Galway.

We have two ceramic figures from Puerto Rico, one for Debbie and one for Jackie.

Here is a cable car we picked up in San Francisco.

This one is from a cruise we took to Halifax, Nova Scotia.


From a solo shopping trip by Fran while we visited London.

We stayed a week in Nevada near Lake Tahoe.

This shell came from a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

This is from the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, NC.

This pineapple ornament is from Colonial Williamsburg.

This ornament is from Ruté in Spain – the anis capital of Europe.

Most prominent on our tree are homemade ornaments. Some of these are from friends, but most from relatives.

Margarine tops were favorites at nursery school!

This purple bell from Circle School keeps making it to the front center of our tree each year. That is the only down side to having your children help with the decorating.

A popscicle sled made by one of Fran's former bosses.


Simulated stained glass ornaments made by Debbie and Jackie at least twenty-five years ago!

Here are some lace stars and linen angels.

These angels are made from macaroni. They are some of the many homemade ornaments made by my sister Dorothy. So is the macaroni wreath.

The glass fired Santa Claus came from the kiln of the mother of dear friends.

Fran's stepmother crocheted several of these ornaments.

The felt angel is from a young woman we have know since she was a small child.

There are several other ornaments with small stories and big memories.

This is an ornament with pictures of the Croton Dam.

Fran and I played more than our share of mixed doubles. These were good times.

My father was very serious about keeping birds fed during the winter months. I have inherited this but with slightly less commitment.

Did I mention that my father lived on a golf course for several years and scavanged about 10,000 golf balls.

We have one child with a super hero fetish.


This is the wedding at Cana. A reminder of our December wedding anniverary.

What is Christmas without a football ornament. Go Giants!

Twenty years vacationing in Vermont and we did not see one moose!

The bird's nest is supposed to bring good luck. We could use some.

We have over twenty years of Christmas silver bells that my mom and dad gave us each year.

Here is the finished project. Another year with the "perfect" tree! Merry Christmas everyone!

Can’t I just Jiggle it?

My wife and I have had a six month affair with the Sears repair service. It started in June when our less than two year old Kenmore dishwasher stopped its only task in life, washing dishes. That evening I took out the product manual and, concentrating on the English version, went through the list of trouble shooting recommendations. The entire manual is sixty-seven pages. There was a long section titled, "Food left on the dishes." Since the dishes we had loaded were indeed not clean, I read that carefully. After testing the hardness of our water and switching to a detergent with a phosphorus content of 8.7% as recommended, the dishes were no cleaner. I purchased a water pressure gauge to assure our home water pressure was the required 120 psi (138 to 828 kPa). I made sure the hot water temperature was 120 ⁰F (49⁰C), although the only thermometer I had was a rectal thermometer and it did not quite make it to 120 ⁰F. It finally occurred to me that the instructions in this section of the manual were dependent on the dishwasher actually working. In our case, the dishwasher was mortally wounded. There was not a hint of power to the dishwasher anywhere.

I tried another troubleshooting section titled, "The dishwasher does not run". I was asked, "Is there power to the dishwasher?" I searched around for an exposed wire that I could grasp and test to see if I received an electrical shock. Not finding one, I located our magnifying glass and carefully looked around the edges of the dishwasher to try and see if any electrons were making their way from Con Edison to the machine. No luck. I did notice that no lights on the control panel were lit. Power could be an issue. There was another instruction to see "has a household fuse blown". It was very still in the house and barely any wind outside. I do not see how a fuse could have blown away. I must assume this test is meant for Kansas or Oklahoma that are in the country's tornado alley. I did find our circuit breaker and it was not tripped and moved ahead under the assumption that we did in fact have power to the dishwasher. "Has the motor stopped?" Since I was not sure it was running, I made another assumption, that is had stopped. "The motor will reset itself in a few minutes." I went to bed and waited 480 minutes. The motor did not reset. Maybe I should have waited longer. The next instruction was to "call for service".

Call I did. I did have to confirm my address to the customer service representative. I wondered if they were concerned if I was lost or if you actually had to be a certified home owner in order to request and receive repair service. My confirmed address was acceptable to Sears. The representative gave me the next available service appointment; it was ten days away. She also told me the repair person would be at my home Tuesday between 8 AM and 12 PM. I made a huge assumption (which I later regretted) that both the 8AM and 12PM referred to the same date. I registered my dismay at having to wait ten days for a service call. I rationalized the reason for such a long waiting time must be due to a New York City metropolitan area appliance failure plague. I know the drive from Long Island to Westchester is not that long!

The scheduled Tuesday, I worked from home to adjust to the service appointment. The repair person did not arrive until 3 PM. I watched him work. He took the door of the dishwasher apart, tested things with an electrical meter and came to the conclusion that the dishwasher's computer needed to be replaced. That sounded expensive and it was. Whoever knew a dishwasher had a computer? Did it also have a home theater sound system? Next I expected him to walk out to his truck to get a replacement computer. Little did I know! He needed to order the new part. I could expect it delivered to my home in ten to fourteen days. At that time I could make another service appointment. After my blood pressure dropped below 150, I signed the credit card receipt to prepay for the new part. The new part arrived in eight days and I called for another appointment. Good luck, I only had to wait eight days. Again I got the 8AM to 12PM service window and this time confirmed that it pertained to the same date.

I scheduled another day working from home. This time a different service person arrived but at 4PM. He installed the new computer, turned on the machine and nothing happened. There was nothing wrong with the computer; what was needed was a new touch pad. No walk out to the truck to get this part either. This second part was ordered and I again signed a credit card receipt. This time it took ten days for the part to come to my home and I make another call to schedule the installation. That date is set and at this point it is forty-three days since I first called Sears Repair Customer Service (there is an oxymoron if you ever heard one).

Eureka! Seven days later the new touch pad is in and we have a working dishwasher. It is mid August and I expect my dishwater hands will heal by early September. I now had to work from home three days and spent $235 to have the dishwasher repaired. The repair cycle for our Kenmore dishwasher was fifty days. Fast forward to mid October, dishes fully loaded water in dishwasher and no power again! I make another call to Sears Repair and receive another appointment eight days from the call.

This time the 8AM to 12PM arrival time is after 5 PM with my wife and me due at a dinner event thirty minutes away from our home at 6 PM. Dumb and dumber take the machine apart and their diagnosis is a failed internal fuse. Finally a part they must have in the truck. Oh ye of too much faith! The fuse needs to be ordered. I pay the credit card bill and start waiting for the next part delivery. It arrives in nine days and I schedule another appointment for eight days later. A technician arrives only one hour outside the promised arrival time and the dishwasher is working. By the way the fuse cost $30.42 and it was $130 to install. The dishwasher ran for two completed cycles and died once again. This time I asked our condominium superintendent to look at the dishwasher and make sure the power to our home was AOK. He did and all checked out fine. He did find a technicians trouble shooting guide hidden in the electrical parts area in the bottom section of the dishwasher. He suggested I follow this guide. Well, it states, "FOR SERVICE TECHNICIAN'S USE ONLY". I did read it. This is a chart thirty by twenty-four inches including electrical diagrams and symbols. This was not a job for me to tackle. We took the only logical next step – off to Home Depot for a new dishwasher. It comes in one week. I also bought a four year extended warranty on this new dishwasher. I am back to hand washing the dishes and we have been eating off of paper plates for some time now.

I remember the good old days. If the toilet would not stop running, you just needed to jiggle the handle. The problem with the dishwasher is that there is just nothing to jiggle! Apparently since dishwashers have a computer inside, the manufacturers could include a USB port to allow owners to hook the dishwasher to a laptop computer and let the Service Center diagnose any electrical issues back at the repair center. It would then be possible to send the repair person to our home with the required part. I am dreaming… next thing I will be talking about people walking on the moon.

Valeria Construction: Dig We Must

This pictorial post is targeted for my readers at Valeria, the home of Dickerson Pond. I had a chance this afternoon to walk around the property where our developer, AVR Home Builders, has started some actual construction supporting their approved plans to add one hundred and forty-seven additional homes to the existing eighty now located on the Valeria property. I am adding some editorial comment to the photos but have not done as much homework that I should to support all of my narrative. Please feel free to make comments to clarify or correct some of my assumptions used in this posting.

My first photo captures a rare breed of prospective buyers on safari in the first new construction area just east of the existing Sales Office. This photo was taken with a powerful lens at a great distance in order not to frighten away this rare breed of post market crash home buyer from the site.
Later on I took a picture of the site of proposed Building 15 just after the potential buyers passed the spot.

Building 15 overlooks the new catch basin/pond that is being constructed. This area was a habitat area for box turtles. These turtles were relocated to a fenced in area on the opposite side of Furnace Dock Road. The site was maintained by two certified vegetarian goats now living in retirement on a farm in Vermont.


The large mound of dirt created by these modern day behemoths will be trucked across to the existing "ash pit" off the west side of Sniffen Mountain Road.

I believe this area was a dumping area for the Valeria Home since the 1920's and deposits included ash from coal fired boilers. Here are some pictures of the ash pit area being prepared to be capped to seal the contents. I found evidence of bottles and broken pottery in the area. It appears it was a general garbage dump for the hotel.

This is a picture overlooking the fenced in relocated habitat for the migrant turtles.

This is roadside trash thrown from Furnace Dock Road into the area between the turtle habitat and the Valeria waste water treatment area.
Many Valeria residents have never visited the waste water treatment area. Here are some photos of this facility that has served the area since the 1920's. The big sandy areas are leech fields are the last stop for waste water before it flows into a tributary of Furnace Brook. The water coming out of the drain pipe looks very clean and the flow is fairly small.
These shots show the work being done to create our new garbage collection area which will be directly adjacent to the existing waste water treatment plant. The land will be leveled and a large fenced in concrete pad will be constructed that meets a new improved entrance road to the treatment plant and garbage collection area.

While walking back from this photo tour, I crossed the golf course. There in the middle the course was a coyote. Unfortunately I could get no closer than this.