For someone who hasn’t even begun Christmas present shopping yet I am becoming very Christmas focused.
I’ve been thinking how nice it would be if you would like to share stories and photos of your favourite Christmas decorations — the older, the better.
I spent far too long online yesterday looking at "vintage Christmas decorations" in Google Images and wishing I had the right to download them for this column.
What excited me most was seeing the paper and card honeycomb decorations we had that I remember so well, but which disintegrated long ago after too much vigorous handling by yours truly and brother Keith. You undid the little metal clasp and the folded paper opened out into a bell or a snowball or a fat tummy.
We had the Christmas tree, a Santa, a robin next to a bell surrounded by holly, and a jolly snowman. My absolute favourite — which I had forgotten until I saw it online — was Santa’s "house". You unfolded the honeycombed paper — like the ruffs on an Elizabethan collar — to make a snowy roof and the snowy ground.
What we do have left are a couple of milk glass (former) tree lights which, I can inform you after extensive research, are probably from the late 1950s or early ’60s.
Once the filaments inside stopped working, my granddad cut the wire and tied each one off into a small decoration. From my childhood I recall the parrot, the Father Christmas and several colourful Chinese lanterns.
Unfortunately they have all since smashed and we’re now left with one lantern and a gorgeous wee house covered in snow (see photo), which is my absolute favourite.
I’m looking forward to hearing about your best-loved decorations. Don’t be shy emailing me.
Capped teeth
Some people have never liked Regan Gentry’s Harbour Mouth Molars on Portsmouth Dr.
Apart from a misgiving about the top end of the harbour being the "mouth" (I thought the other end was the mouth?), I quite like them.
And I quite like the fact they stir people up.
I’m not sure the addition of the road cones by some witty person or persons unknown has really added much to the statement they make. My colleague, reporter Samuel White, asked the Dunedin City Council about the molar hats and what would be done about them.
Council parks and recreation operations manager Jendi Paterson said it was the council’s responsibility to remove the cones.
"We will make an appointment to extract the cones from the molars as soon as we can," she said.
Good to inject a bit of fun into an operation.
A sandrover
Denis McCombe, of Helensburgh, writes about something that has been "bothering" him for years.
"Why is it car commercials, almost without exception, show a new car being driven not only along a beach, but actually through the waves? The current one for Jeep does this."
Denis’ concern is the corrosive damage salt water can do to the underside of a vehicle.
"I certainly would not want to buy, even at a vastly reduced price, any new car that had been used in this way."
I asked ODT Drivesouth editor David Thomson what he thought about the beach workout.
"Salt is certainly one of the hazards of driving on a sandy beach," David replied, "but by no means the only one, or perhaps even the worst one with modern standards of rust proofing.
"I’d rate the sand that gets into vital nooks and crannies of a vehicle (especially mechanical areas such as brakes and bearings) as an equal or perhaps even more serious long-term issue.
"There is also the more immediate hazard, as occurs at Tomahawk Beach on a regular basis, of getting stuck.
"I think we all recognise that most car advertising is more about aspirations than directly reflecting the real world. A Jeep being driven on a beach represents the ruggedness of the Jeep brand, and the carefree adventurous lifestyle that a Jeep owner presumably wants to be associated with.
"The current beach advert that makes me smile the most these days is actually for Bentley, which is obviously a far more upmarket brand than Jeep. It features a Bentley on a beach with its glamorous presumed owner/owners in their wetsuits with surfboards. How ridiculous is that, you might ask."
David also points out the deliciously funny story about the Bentley that got stranded on a British beach.
Check out www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11837209/120000-Bentley-gets-stuck-on-be....
How would you feel if that happened to you? Scant sympathy probably.