Russell J.T. Dyer

Just some guy, hanging around Milan.

the activities and musings of an american writer and editor in milan, italy • Updated: Dec 29, 2012 - 12:00AM • hits: 1527 for site today; 1 for page this week

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Logged January 27, 2011

Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree from 1965

I like having a Christmas tree in my home during Christmas time. However, finding one in Milan isn’t as easy as it is in the United States. Plus, I don’t have a car to haul one home. Of course, I would only want a small tree since my apartment isn’t very big. My new apartment, the one I moved into a couple of years ago can stand one, but I’d prefer the tree not be too disruptive. So, I’ve been looking for a small tree from somewhere nearby.

As a boy I used to like watching the Charlie Brown cartoon movies made for television, the ones for each of the major holidays in the U.S. The best two were, A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—the one for Halloween. If you remember the one for Christmas, you’ll remember how the Peanuts gang had only a small branch from a Christmas tree to use for the Christmas show. Linus wrapped the base of it with his favorite blue blanket and they put one red ornament on it, causing it to bend over a bit. Then Linus told everyone how the tree was fine since it represented the spirit of Christmas and their friendship for each other. It was very sappy, but as kids we liked it. Anyway, a small tree the size of their tree would be fine

A Charlie Brown Christmas at the Dyerhouse

When I was in the U.S. in December, my daughter and I discovered an artificial tree designed similarly to that of the tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. It’s artificial, which I’m not a fan generally, and made to bend like their tree. It came with one oversized red bulb to hang from the top. You can see it in the photograph here. It’s so funny. I like it. A friend of an old girlfriend of mine went with us one year shopping for a Christmas tree. She wanted the biggest tree we could find. He pointed out the merits of having a smaller tree: not only are they cheaper, but the few small presents you might have under your tree look so much bigger and better by comparison. Incidentally, the presents under the tree in this shot weren’t for me. They were for my son who was staying with me for a few months and my girlfriend of the time. I bought myself an Amazon Kindle for Christmas, but decided not to wrap it. Maybe next year I’ll do that with whatever I buy myself so that I have something to open.

Musings

Below are recent musings of mine. Click on an entry heading to read its full text. Click on the musings tab at the top left to see all of them.


Deleting Skype Contacts

Over the past few weeks I have begun to delete friends most of the people from my Skype contact list. I have deleted friends, actual friends with whom I regularly communicate. I am down to eleven contacts in Skype now: eight colleagues, two friends, and my daughter.

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I have no friends; I have no girlfriend.

A few weeks ago I couldn’t suffer Facebook any longer. I thought to deactivate it again, but knew I’d give in later and reactivate it. So this time I deleted all of my contacts. According to Facebook, I now have no friends. It’s kind of a neat thing to say.

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