Frank & Zack Find Santee

Treasure Tree -- Seeing all the great holiday decorations everyone has shared on their blogs over the past couple of weeks has inspired me to dig back in the photo archives. I found this one from the mid 90s--a fantasy tree filled with antique glass ornaments from Czechoslovakia,Poland, Germany and the much loved Shiny Brites manufactured in New York in the late 1930s and sold at Woolworth's. I collected these ornaments for years from antiques stores, flea markets, and tag sales. The presents under the tree had to be wrapped simply and tied with single bows of real fabric ribbon. In '96 Willie the pit bull was a pup and I didn't put a tree for fear he would turn it over and break all my treasures. Inspired by all of you, perhaps I'll try harder in '08.


Present Search -- before Willie there was Frank and Zack. They didn't threaten to turn the tree over or break ornaments, but they weren't very patient with old Santee Claus. They were both good boys and knew that they deserved presents of rawhide strips. Before Christmas morning they could be caught snooping under the tree looking for their presents. They both were smart dogs as shown in their Christmas shopping. Both went for the presents wrapped in dog printed paper!

Seeing this rear view of Frank reminded me that I used his white "spotlight" to guide us on night walks or to find him in the yard after dark. Zack was my wild and crazy border collie/lab mix who made every day unpredictable but fun. Both lived to ripe old ages and helped me through many life transitions in the 90s.