I was wearing a scarf I think was knitted by my first girlfriend. It was the only reason I was wearing a scarf. Scarves weren't a big thing in our house growing up and I didn't really see the purpose in wearing one.
We are sitting in front of the tree in our family room which had wood paneling, a Franklin Stove and god-awful orange shag carpeting. The room looked the same up until the house was torn down after my mom died about 38 years later. I imagine we would have had a Christmas dinner later that day when my brother and his now ex-wife came over (she was the first of three wives). I was in high school of course and had just started dating that spring. I don't remember what I got my girlfriend for Christmas that year. I was still trying to figure out the complicated rituals of gifts and girlfriends. No matter what it was, I imagine it was the wrong thing.
I don't remember what else I got for Christmas that year. The 70s were a time of 8-track tapes and polyester shirts. My brother is holding a mug from his burgeoning mug collection. It may have been when he started on the path to being a borderline hoarder that he is now (and I am being kind to refer to him a "borderline" hoarder). I'm not sure when he set out on the path to being a Trump groupie.
My father was a few years from retiring as a custodian at the local university. He had worked at a hardware warehouse for 25 years before the company closed and laid him off when he was 55. He was a good custodian, though. And he brought home crap he found in the garbage all the time so that may have contributed to my brother's hoarding tendencies, too.
I post this photo, not because it was a particularly memorable Christmas. It is just one of the few photos from that time. And it does capture the spirit of the 1970s and my particular teen spirit.
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