My tie today shows children dressed for games. It was given to me by my Mom and Dad thirty years ago. Today (6 January, Epiphany) my mother Ethel Howland (York) Kleppinger would be 110 years old! As shown in the photo from ~1959 (when she was 43 and I was about 5) we got along quite well.
Today (5 January) is the Twelfth Day of Christmas! According to PNC, the total cost for all twelve gifts is $51,476.12. But that figure counts each gift just once, not the hefty accumulation you might expect over the twelve days. My very long tie shows all of the gifts!
My tie bar says "Walkabout Expert," anticipating the outdoor walk I will take with my grandchildren this afternoon!
Today's bright paisley tie was selected by brother Mark Wollenweber, to help celebrate his birthday (yesterday). He said "This reminds me of my first paisley tie wayway back when I was a teenager and my knees didn’t hurt."
By special request (at my suggestion) I'm wearing this tie to help celebrate the 16th anniversary of the marriage of Jonathan and Courtney Kleppinger! We remember (very happily) a cold and snowy day in Hyden, Kentucky. We love them and their five children!
My first post in 2026 celebrates TWO YEARS of retirement! It's been fun and never boring.
Today's tie -- which completes my celebration of National Tie Month -- honors the patenting of the Monopoly game on 31 December 1935. My official Monopoly® tie has vanished from my tie racks, but the play money on this tie matches up quite well with the "real" game currency.
To see all 31 moments in National Tie Month you can scroll through my Facebook page or visit my tie blog!
It's the penultimate day of National Tie Month! (I received a notification that "penultimate" is the Word of the Day for 30 December.) It's staying very cold in central Kentucky, so the snowmen on my red tie are very happy, and so are their red and yellow bird companions!
The brief flurries of tiny snowflakes this morning fully justify wearing my absurd snowpeople tie! The pictures include an alien with slanted eyes, an urban model covered with dirt and graffiti, a "bloated" figure with a huge body, a "middle-aged" snowman with a bulging gut, a snow-deer (with antlers) and a triplet of "snow clones," along with a plain old snowman.
On the Fourth Day of Christmas (which is also the 28th day of National Tie Month) I'm wearing a gifty tie that came to me from Rachel and David Haskins eleven years ago! Today we heard many scores of calling birds near our house, many more than four.
Today (27 December) we are celebrating our Kleppinger/Wheeler/Wollenweber family Christmas! One annual tradition for us is a ten-way gift exchange (among the adults), and it's always fun to discover how DrawNames.com has matched us up this time. And of course we have presents for our eight grandchildren. My tie shows fancy ball ornaments -- of the 150 (?) on our tree, about five are like that!
Today's mushrooms tie was chosen by Amanda, who has worked at the front desk of Silver Creek Animal Hospital. Tomorrow is her birthday! When she told me about her choice she added that "I have a large mushroom tattoo on my right shoulder."
Today's tie for Christmas Eve continues a longstanding personal tradition . . . celebrating the message of the angels to the shepherds . . .
This is the 23rd day of National Tie Month. I'm wearing my snowman tie that chirps "Jingle Bells" in hopes that we might see some snow soon, but that's very unlikely. We had snow two weeks ago but our weather has been very warm and will probably be so for the rest of the year!
Surprise! I'm wearing this tie for a second time this month, because I just uncovered the fact that colored Christmas lights were invented around this date (22 December) in 1882. Edward Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison ,at the Edison Light Company, hand-wired 80 red, white, and blue light bulbs and strung them together around a tree in front of the street-side window of his parlor. A generator powered the lights and the tree’s revolving pedestal. Within a few years colored lights became a holiday tradition.
