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sylviatexas1

Please Share Your Christmas Memories

sylviatexas1
13 years ago

When I was a child, I was honored to live in the very first house on Santa's route:

On Christmas Eve, Granny & Papa gathered as many of their children & grandchildren as possible (it was the 50's, a time when many jobs required frequent moves & many families were military, so a lot of my uncles & aunts were overseas or out-of-state).

We kids opened our "family" presents-from our own parents & from the aunt or uncle who had drawn our name-

beneath a fresh tree trimmed in venerable & fragile ornaments, lead "icicles", & construction paper chains made by the younger ones.

At the peak of the festivities, my father & my Uncle Nick would say the Dearborn heater was way too hot & they had to get some fresh air;

a few minutes later, Daddy would pop back in & say they were going to Uncle Nick's house to fix a doorknob or get a new battery for the camera or some such.

After a while, they'd return, & within a few minutes, my parents would load us into the car & take us home.

*& Santa had been to our house while we were at Granny's!*

As my parents explained, it was a very long trip, & Santa had to start somewhere.

Comments (6)

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    13 years ago

    Mine are nit quite the halmark card memories because my family were far from that kind of family. One christmas , me my husband, sister, boy friend, brother and wife all got in the bathtub with a bottle of stolli while my other sister held my mother up with a butcher knife and absconded with the pecan pie. No one ever knew how to behave appropriately. I probably have pictures somewhere, Oh we cooked a Huge salmon from alaska by digging a hole in the driveway and imuing it and served it up on a boogie board because we didn't have a dish big enough.

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    snork!

    I *love* your Christmas memories!

  • roselee z8b S.W. Texas
    13 years ago

    Great idea for a thread!

    I have so many happy Christmas memories, but will share just the earliest one and that is being absolutely fascinated with a magical village of little snow covered houses, church, trees, etc. with lights in them that were placed on a thick fluffy white cotton skirt under the tree. Santa's sleigh and reindeer were there, too. I must have layed by the tree for hours just admiring them and making up stories about them. I guess I was about four years old. I now wonder who it was in my extended family that lived in my grandmother's big two story house that was responsible for buying them, but anyone that would know has gone on to bigger and better things, so to speak :-)

  • ltcollins1949
    13 years ago

    Here is a post that I put on our Rockport Herbies Blog about DECEMBER, CHRISTMAS AND WINTER HOLIDAY HERBS. It gives information about the herbs that have been used traditionally and even a Rosemary Shortbread Cookie recipe!

    Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Seasonal Greetings or whatever greeting you use!

  • seamommy
    13 years ago

    When I was little and Daddy was stationed in Indianapolis, Christmastime was always cold and snowy. A few days before Christmas Mom and Dad would pack all of us into the old Dodge and drive downtown. All the stores back then had big display windows along the sidewalks and for the holidays they had special displays. Some windows had the religious theme, with a Nativity that was real people. It was so exciting to see them bending over the manger and bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. Other windows had winter scenes with mirror ponds and little skaters on them. These scenes all had lots of interesting details, like a guy who had fallen on the "ice" and a dad lacing up his childrens skates, fires in tiny metal barrels and a band of people singing carols. Most of the scenes used doll sized people and were static. Some scenes had Santa's workshop or his sleigh being loaded with toys.

    We would walk from window to window, hanging on to Mom and Dad, pointing at each new display and yelling, "Look at that one Mommy", or "Daddy look over there!" My parents had the patience of Job to take five kids out on a frigid evening to walk two blocks at a snails pace, down and back, to look at window displays like that. And we didn't want to stay together either, the boys wanted to go into the stores, the girls wanted to go back to look at anything with horses in it. My parents must have felt like they were herding cats.

    Those were my most vivid memories of Christmas. Oh yeah, and the Christmas eve that my little brother ate a bottle of baby aspirin and we all had to go to the emergency room and watch him get his stomach pumped out through his nose. That one has stayed with me too. Ha! Cheryl

  • soxxxx
    13 years ago

    I live in Kilgore TX. When I was a child there were around 1100 derricks all over the oilfield in this area.
    Most of those downtown had a big star on top that was lit up for 2 weeks at Christmas. It was so exciting for this little country girl to see such a sight.

    Then starting in the 50's the derricks began to be sold and taken down. Alas no more stars.

    In the last few years an effort has been made to restore a few derricks to downtown. All have their own bright shining star.

    My eyes are so pleased and my heart so warmed each year as I make a few special trips downtown at night in December. I tell my DD and DGD to appreciate it and to think of me when I am no longer with them on the yearly treks.

    If you live near enough come take a look.