Tree Parties from Yesteryears

After posting of this year's tree party yesterday, I found a few scans of older gatherings from our previous residence. Collaboration amongst Sue, Shauna, and me have led us to conclude that the four photos cover three different years, but we'll get to that, shortly.

I have told you here yesterday that the tree-decorating parties began sometime around the mid-80s, but we believe that these photos were from the early 90s. 

In the first image, Shauna appears to be untangling ornament strings from the previous year. This was an annual chore. That's my little father hanging a decoration. Like me now, he mostly sat back and enjoyed watching the others trim the tree, but we made sure that he hung at least one ornament.

We are not sure whether the above photo was earlier or later than the next two, which show the whole gathering, except for me. We believe that both years are from the early 90s.

Our youngest is in the background of both of the next photos. The woman on the right is our friend, Val, who, sadly, did not live to a ripe old age. Sue is in the second photo with her original hair colour. 

My parents are of a roughly similar age to what I am now.
Like me, my father's hair is more dark than gray.

Look at my little father next to Sue, who is not exactly a giant.

As you can see, we were a small gathering then, but we have since then decreased from 7 to 5, which is just as well in a way since Shauna's place is rather on the small side, as is ours. Sue and I don't even put up a tree anymore, apart from a tabletop one in the kitchen. 

After much discussion, focusing on wallpaper, we concluded that this next photo was the most recent of the three years represented in this post. I believe that it was from 1994 or 5, and Sue agrees that it was at least 1992 or later. I was thrown off by my mother's outfit at first, for it is the same as it was in the earlier year, above. In this ↓ photo, Little Mom and Big AC are doing our bit. I did help more with the tree decorating back then, but, like my father before me, am content to be more of an observer now.

I think the saying is "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose:"  the more things change, the more they stay the same. The location and some of the characters have changed, but the family core continues to decorate the tree together.

* After the previous post, I was asked about Boxing Day in Canada. Whatever its old-country origins, here it is a statutory holiday like Christmas. Stores remain closed for the most part, but we don't tend to do anything special — at least our little clan doesn't.