~When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things — not the great occasions — give off the greatest glow of happiness. –Bob Hope
Here it is Wednesday night again and I’m getting the pleasure of sending a few words out to my friends. Does December seem to the be the fastest month of the year after you get grown up and have to be the one getting things done in time? I do remember when it wasn’t like that at all. Then December was the slowest month of the year and Christmas Eve a day with double the amount of normal hours as I waited for the fun to begin at my aunt’s house.
We always had Christmas Eve there and while we didn’t get a lot of toys, we did always get something fun. Maybe a book or a puzzle and then new clothes. I remember being excited about whatever she gave me. She was more like a grandmother than an aunt since she had never married and still lived with my grandfather. My grandmother died before I was two. My aunt always made everything fun. We would spend the night with her every Friday. At Christmas, we helped her put up her tree. That’s a picture of one of those trees. Sometimes we helped her wrap the boxes that had our presents. Without peeking, of course.
I need to get organized and get some Christmas decorating done. I don’t do a lot. Just a tree and a high shelf crowded with my collection of Santa Clauses that have been gifts through the years. Sometimes people find out you collect something, your shelves can get full quickly. My mother was that way with birds. We were always giving her birds until she finally said whoa, that’s enough. I think we still sneaked a few more her way. I’ll have to free my Santas from the boxes in the basement and drag up my tree this weekend or next week at the latest!
I admire people who put up multiple trees. One of my daughters-in-law puts up a tree in every room, and the trees all look great. But me, I guess I take after my grandmother. Mom said Mama Rose never wanted to bother with a Christmas tree, so they just hung their stockings on a rocking chair. They didn’t have a Christmas tree until her youngest sister talked their dad into bringing in a cedar when Mom was a teenager. I’m sure the sisters had fun doing the decorating. I let the Merritt sisters, who were inspired by my mother and her sisters, have a Christmas tree in my third Rosey Corner book, Love Comes Home. I loved writing those Christmas scenes in that book. Maybe I’ll share part of one of those scenes on Sunday and see if I can give away a copy of that book. Love, tears, and joys in the story.
I do want to put up a tree, and so far I’ve always gotten the tree decorated before Christmas day. So far. When we lived in the old farmhouse, my two older kids and I would sometimes go out Christmas tree hunting on the farm. Lots of cedar trees. My oldest son was probably seven and my daughter five the year I’m remembering. We picked a tree that was way too big. Out there in the field, those trees just look smaller. And greener and not so lopsided. As you can probably tell, we didn’t do the best job of picking a tree, but my husband managed to cut it down to size and the kids loved having searched it out. As well as I remember, my son helped chop it down with a little axe.
Cedars smell good sitting in your living room, but they are sticky. Not so bad when you decorate them, but very prickly when you take the ornaments off after Christmas. Especially those shiny foil icicles. Any of you remember those? Plus cedars dry out fast even if you set them in a bucket of water and you are heating your house with a woodstove. That makes you worry about them being fire hazards. I’ve gotten modern now with an artificial tree, but I sometimes think how my dad would frown if he knew I paid good money for a fake tree when the fields were full of cedars that need to be cut down.
When I was a kid, Dad didn’t overflow with Christmas spirit, but sometimes he’d come home from a trip to Louisville with a gift he bought at a warehouse or secondhand shop. One Christmas he brought in a turntable record player. It didn’t have a case, but since it played LPs and 45’s and had a stack ’em on spindle, we were happy. So he wasn’t exactly a Scrooge. He just left most of the merry preparations up to Mom and his sister. They made Christmas fun.
~Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white’. – Bing Crosby
Hope you have many great Christmas memories. Wishing you much happiness and joy. Always joy.
What’s some of your favorite Christmas decorating memories?
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I remember getting those finger sticks from the cedar trees we brought home from the woods around the house. The tree did smell so good, and we enjoyed decorating it, but not so much taking it down. Fun memories!
Author
Glad you liked going down memory lane, Connie, even if some of those memories were about getting stuck from those prickly tree branches. It’s been a while since we’re had a live tree, but maybe I should get a pine fragrance candle.
I love reading your memories. I have so many wonderful memories growing up . We would go sledding & dadddy would have a fire and mama would popcorn or make potato chips, fudge, or snow ice cream. Decorating the tree was always fun with us singing carols and daddy always slow dancing with mama and kissing her under the mistletoe.
Author
Thanks for sharing some of your memories, Lucy. Isn’t it heartwarming to let our minds wander back to those days when we were young and Christmas was magic. I love the picture of your mama and daddy slow dancing and kissing under the mistletoe. That had to make all of you feel wrapped in love.
We still get a real Christmas tree and try to get it the day after Thanksgiving and have gotten a few days before when able. I think the fun part is the family time spent picking it out and then decorating it. Our house is ready for Christmas, but it took several days and everyone helping. We take the Christmas stuff out of totes and chests and put the “everyday” stuff in them. It is a lot of work but pretty when finished. One of my favorite trees was one a neighbor left us pick out of his field for free one year when my husband was suddenly out of work. It wasn’t shaped like the ones you buy and had more prickly branches, but we loved it and were so thankful and our kids still had fun picking it out. It’s prickly branches also taught our cats not to mess with the tree because it bit back and now they don’t mess with any we get! 🙂
Author
It’s good for you that your cats got turned off from climbing your trees, Hope. My daughter has three cats. One is older and has never bothered her trees, but two are not a year old yet and they think she put the tree up just for them to climb. She doesn’t have a real tree and I guess the artificial ones aren’t as prickly. We went to a Christmas tree farm once years ago and bought a live tree. After Christmas we planted it and it was lovely for many years, but then whatever is killing certain pines got it and it died branch by branch from the bottom to the top.
Sounds as if you have a lot of fun decorating. I enjoy when the grandkids come out and help me put up the tree, but unless they are here, it’s just a chore for me although I do like looking at many of my ornaments and remembering why they are special. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas.
We always had a cedar tree, too. Oh, how I love the smell. I also called my grandmother Mama Rose, but she loved decorating for Christmas. She had three siblings who didn’t have children, so everyone gathered at her house, bursting with people. The first time my husband attended Christmas Eve at Mama Rose’s house, he was in shock, as both his parents were only children. Aunt Freddy always gifted everyone with a box of chocolate-covered cherries. It might not seem like much, but when I consider how many boxes she purchased and her income, it was a generous gift she gave with joy. When I see a box of chocolate-covered cherries, I think of her and smile.
I hope you have a wonderful and happy Merry Christmas!
Author
Great memories, Shelia. I didn’t come from a large family on my father’s side. She had one sister who never married. So our Christmas Eve celebrations were pretty quiet but also my favorite place to celebrate with my aunt. I had a little of your father’s eye opening of how families were different when I first went to my husband’s grandparents’ house at Christmas. They lived in a very small house – a teeny kitchen, a dining area with a small room off it and a living room that also served as their bedroom. There was an upstairs, but they had gotten too elderly to climb the narrow stairs up or perhaps they had always slept in the living room. I never asked. Anyway, it was wall to wall people, but they were all nice people. 🙂