December 2008

Here it is, the middle of December already. It feels as though it was just Thanksgiving and now December is half over. We had our annual Christmas party last night. It was a lot of fun.

Sarah and Keith came over as well as Keith's parents, Greg and Linda. Shawn drove down and arrived a little later and then Megan came over. All of our closest friends came. It was a real nice time.

The upcoming week is going to be a fun week. I mean, I never have a lot of fun at work--simply because I don't want to be there. But there are a lot of parties and fun things planned for the week--so it will make the week a little more bearable, anyway.

Today was fun. A group of my friends and I met down at a tea room in La Plata, MD for Christmas Tea. We all usually try to go to the Christmas tea every year. The tea room offers themed "teas" throughout the year--and we go to several of those--but Christmas time is our favorite time to go.

On Tuesday Bob and I are driving to Baltimore to see Kenny G in concert at the Lyric Opera House. It is his Christmas concert. I have been wanting to see him live for years now. And to see his Christmas concert--it's going to be fantastic.

My shopping for the most part is done. The gifts are wrapped, the packages and cards have been mailed. I have some baking to do, but, otherwise, I am ready for Christmas.

I love Christmas - it's always been my favorite holiday.

As I write this, I am reminded of some of my favorite childhood Christmas memories. I remember the whole family hiking around the tree farm, each person on the look out for THE perfect tree. We never found the right tree until we were frozen. Then finally, we would take the tree home.

My Dad would get the tree set up in the stand and after what seemed like hours, he would announce that he was done putting the lights on the tree and it was now time to decorate. Excitedly, we would dig through the boxes of ornaments and decorations to find our favorites and put them on the tree. Inevitably, 1 or 2 glass ornaments would get broken in the excitement.

Once the tree was decorated, we would sit back and admire our masterpiece. My Dad would turn off all the lights in the room and leave only the Christmas tree lights. Every year, we would claim that our Christmas tree was the best tree we ever had.

Another favorite holiday memory for me was when my Mom would set up her village in the extra long, extra wide window sill in our front room--or mud room or whatever you would called it.

I remember the little houses and shops she set up along Main Street. Then she would add "snow," trees, people and an ice-skating rink. She used an inverted foil pie pan for the ice. She would surround it with "snow." (cotton) She had people that she was able to attach to the ice. Other townsfolk would appear outside houses and shops. I could spend hours studying the wintry scene and made up stories about the townspeople. I knew which families lived where, how many kids they had and so on. I loved that little village.

While my Mom was busy with her village, my Dad would be busy setting up the train set that ran around another village underneath the tree. His tiny town encircled the tree. Some of the houses sat up on hills and looked down to the tracks and the shops. A master craftsman, my Dad built tunnels the train would travel through. His village also had miniature people and trees.

Throughout the year we'd wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. But during Christmas time, we'd get up early and sit by the tree, enjoying the lights and watching the train while it traveled its endless journey around the tree.

The Christmas season was also spent helping Mom bake dozens of cookies. To our dismay, she seemed to give away far too many cookies to neighbors, friends and the church. But, there always were plenty of cookies for us. Each cookie was loaded with frosting, sugar and candy sprinkles.

With a big family like ours, (8 kids) there was always plenty of shopping to be done. For a long while, I'm sure my Mom had to do all the shopping. And, I'm sure she always did the bulk of the shopping. But, at some point the 4 older kids were allowed to walk downtown to the Woolworth's dime store and pick out gifts for the family with the allowance my Mom gave us. (this was the mid-1960's and was "relatively" safe to allow kids to walk some distance alone)

I do remember my Mom calling the 4 of us to the kitchen for a "meeting." (I'm number 3) She had devised a plan for the shopping. With such a large family, instead of each person giving individual gifts to everyone, she was planning to pair us kids up and we would shop as partners, picking out gifts for the rest of the family. Each "big kid" would be paired with a "little kid."

She would write the names of the 4 youngest on a paper and put the names in an envelope. Then each of us older kids would pick a name. That person was to be our partner. The oldest member of each team was handed an envelope with money. That was our budget to buy gifts for the family.

The system worked pretty well. We would grab our coats and hats and head out the door to walk downtown. (at this time it was the 1960's and we lived in Hobart, IN) It was relatively safe for kids to walk around on their own back then. We'd walk with our partner to Woolworth's and begin our shopping.

Probably the only one who didn't go was Roger, the baby--who was just a baby then and his partner had to go on their own. I do remember little Wayne would go with us. He was pretty young, too, but not as young as Roger.

It was a great deal of fun. We were all "grown up" shopping on our own. We had to sneak around Woolworth's so as to not bump into the other teams. We didn't want to spoil each other's surprises.

We'd bring our treasures back home and Mom would get out the wrapping paper and we'd wrap our gifts then hide them until Christmas Eve when they would be placed under the tree.

Sometimes we'd find everything for everyone in one day; sometimes we would need a 2nd trip to either Woolworth's or if Mom was going on a real shopping trip to Chicago, we could go along and finish our shopping. I think all the teams always had to ask Mom for additional shopping money. And, of course, at some point, we had to split up from our partner in order to shop for them.

I don't remember specific things we got our Dad, but I do remember that every year our poor Mom would get 2 or 3 of the same smiling Santa mug that Woolworth's seemed to have ample supply of.

I have a vague memory of all of us writing our Christmas wish lists. I remember when we'd get to Woolworth's we would pull out a list with ideas for what everyone wanted. So, we must have had the wish lists posted someplace so everyone could see them and get ideas for what each person wanted.

Another vivid memory is of the Christmas specials that came on TV:

Back in those days everyone had a black and white TV. The pictures were shades of black, gray and white. I think I was in college before my Dad broke down and bought a color TV. Color TVs were available back then, but black and white sets were still the norm--and much cheaper. So, I was in college the first time I saw "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in color!

Back then, there were no VHS or DVD players to record shows and movies. You either watched it when it came on or you didn't. "Rudolf," "Frosty," "A Charlie Brown Christmas," and the other Christmas specials of the day were a big deal and the whole family sat down together to watch them. You couldn't buy them like you can today. They came on once a season and that was that.

Later, when I was 12, my family moved to Michigan. Our city bordered Canada, so, then we had 2 shots to see the specials because we had the American and Canadian channels.

It is fun for me to think back on those Christmases. I don't remember my childhood being all happy and rosy--but my Christmas memories are very happy. I loved Christmas then and I still love it today.

I love to decorate, bake and shop. I love writing my cards and getting packages ready to mail. I just thoroughly enjoy the entire season.