TREE TRIMMING: Duke Center author Bill Robertson shared this funny anecdote about his childhood Christmases.
“Trimming the Tree”
“My sister and I had very different ideas about trimming a Christmas tree, especially where tinsel was concerned. Jill preferred to string it over the branches a strand at a time while I favored throwing gobs of it on for optimum glitter effect.
“We usually ended up chucking it at each other until my sister’s hair wore more glitter than the Scotch pine did.

“I further got Jill’s goat by calling her the hated nickname ‘Birtie.’ Then, she’d shoot me a withering look and growl, ‘You’re nothing but a slop, Wilhelm.’
“Luckily, Mom baked plenty of Swedish butter cookies to soothe my sister’s feelings. I, meanwhile, lived up to Jill’s opinion of me by stuffing brownies in my mouth until my lips dripped with gooey chocolate.”

The Christmas holiday would definitely not have been the same as a kid without our siblings
— for better or for worse.

HISTORY: From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. today, over in Eldred at the World War II Museum, director Steve Appleby will share the story of the local National Guard unit and its heroic stand during the largest land battle of the European War — The Battle of the Bulge.

If you’ve never been to this gem of a museum, now is the perfect chance. It’s right on Main Street, you can’t miss the tank coming out of its wall.