Christmas Memories
Now that I have kids, I'm always thinking about their memories. Like, I wonder when they'll start remembering the holidays and what their best memories will be. My guess is that they won't remember every little present, but they will remember time we spent together and weird, random things that you wouldn't expect. Below are some of my favorite Christmas memories and traditions. (BTW, these aren't in any order, they are just the first 10 things I thought of.)
1. We used to always pull out the projector and screen on Christmas Eve and watch all of our old home movies.
2. My Granny would spend the night on Christmas Eve even though she lived in the same town as us. I remember coming into the room and hearing her breathing in her sleep. I thought she sounded like Darth Vader (in a funny way, not a scary way).
3. I remember going to my Meme's house and heading straight for her buffet to see if the little crystal dish had her homemade date-loaf in it. Sounds gross, but tasted GOOD.
4. I remember getting some really cute, corduroy knickers one year that I loved and wore all the time. (Remember knickers?) I think my mom actually made them, and I can picture myself on my Meme's couch wearing those knickers - so happy.
5. I remember that our stockings were always stuffed with a lot of fruit every year! We had other little presents in there too, but the fruit must have been an easy and cheap way to fill that sucker up.
6. Seems like there was always a big jigsaw puzzle laid out on a card table that everybody worked on during the days at home after Christmas.
7. One year my sister and I both had the chicken pox at Christmas. Our brother was the only one who had any fun because he had them a week or two before and was already well. I'm not sure I remember this actual event as much as I remember seeing the pictures (and home movies) of my sister and I in our matching pj's looking really sad.
8. We had an artificial Christmas tree and I remember pulling it out of the box and putting it together every year by matching up the color-coded branches with the trunk. I can picture most of our Christmas decorations and exactly where they were in our house year after year.
9. Food staples: ham, cheesy potatoes, pecan pie, gum-drop cookies, fudge, trash.
10. I remember the unfortunate time that I got busted for peaking into my presents before Christmas Day. Doh! My secret tradition became a painful memory. haha
Share your favorite tradition or Christmas memory. For every person who comments on this blog post, I am going to donate $10 to Central Texas Children's Home.
11 comments:
Wow Beth, I love all your fun random memories. I have some funny ones as well. When I was 5 or 6?? I opened all the gifts under the tree, only it was on Christmas eve morning! ha! My mom wrapped them all back up to save for the next day. ha! How was I to know what day it was?!
-Tanya
Wow Beth, that is a wonderful idea! One of my favorite memories is sneaking out of my bedroom in the middle of the night with a flashlight to see what my parents had filled my stocking with. Another good one is the year my sister, Julie, and I had HUGE wrapped gifts behind the tree (they were so big they wouldn't fit under the tree). We were teenagers and we both thought we were getting humongous sterios. We were SO SAD on Christmas morning to open the gifts and find out they were suitcases! Just what a teenager wants... :)
Very cool. I remember everything you mentioned~~ a few more off the top of my head are neighbors we would normally see over the fence would make more formal visits at that time of year (seems I remember some of them visiting even after we moved from that neighborhood). I remember Papaw being there just watching us mainly and smiling. I remember on Pine St my bedroom was next to the living room and we had these kind of louvered double doors. I could see light and hear noise through the slats and it took every ounce of fortitude I had to stay in my bed on Christmas Eve. I remember Go-Cart Christmas morning!! Seems like we always had a fire in the fireplace & did we have a litter of puppies one year? I want to add that I think you are starting some traditions that will be awesome memories for Jackson & Lukey when they look back 30 years from now :)
I almost put the Go-Cart in my list, but I don't remember getting to ride in it very much. I don't think you and David gave me very many turns. :-)
I love hearing about other people's Christmas memories and traditions! One thing my Nana did every year was to buy both me and Beth a "special" ornament. She did this for both of us from year one through 18, and each year it was a big deal to open the present and put the new ornament on the tree. And, even though Beth and I were WAY past the age of believing in Santa, we had Santa presents even when we were in college. They were unwrapped under the tree and we got those first; then we unwrapped gifts; and last our stockings. The stocking were usually full of candy and little things, but always at the bottom was our special gift from Mom and Dad - usually jewelry or something like that.
My grandparents got married on Christmas Eve so every year the entire family would get together to celebrate their anniversary and have a family Christmas. One year we had the party at my house and my uncle brought his new camera (it was 1982 and the camera was huge!) My house, as usual was decked out for Christmas because my dad entered holiday house decorating contests. We had dinner and sang and made fools of ourselves for my uncles camera, generally we had a great time and I remember feeling so happy and loved not because I got a pair of boots, but because I had my family with me.
As it turned out that was to be my grandmothers last Christmas, we lost her to cancer 6 months later and I knew that Christmas would never be the same for me. I was right, but my mom and dad created a tradition that next year that helped fill the void a bit, every year on Christmas Eve we sat down and watched the video of that Christmas and relived happy memories and focused on the positive. It was very therapeutic and healing for me.
Now that I have my own kids I have so many other "favorite" memories, but that last Christmas with my grandmother will always be close to my heart.
Christmas Blessings
Beth, I was just recently talking to someone about the go cart Christmas and the fact that it was so fun because we weren't even asking for it. We didn't let you ride it much because we were just watching after you. We didn't want you to get hurt. Other memories I have are us getting up way before daylight and waiting outside the den for mom and dad to wake up. I can't believe you didn't mention the 'stick pin' Christmas. I remember one warm Christmas when we all got really old style warm up suits and we went to the Texas High track and just ran around on Christmas day. It was fun reading all your old memories. Your boys are lucky to have such a good mom that is making so many good memories and I am proud that you and Becky are my sisters.
You should see the picture of me on my first bike in front of Mimi Jones's 56 Chevy, which was exactly the same color as the Schwinn Tornado. My legs were skinny as ever in the red leotards. Of course, the car was really old by the time I got my first bike, I should say.
Meme's house was always fun at Christmas time and all the time.
I'm so glad you take the time to keep your families and friends connected.
While we're confessing, I was in high school when my best friend and I unwrapped every single present under her family's tree on a sleepover weekend. I thought we'd never get caught because I had a JOB wrapping gifts at Smith's Jewel Box in Sherman, and we so carefully re-wrapped them all. Alas, her mom noticed.
Gotta love this rain despite the cold tonight.
I believe the stick pin fiasco was Mother's Day - but thanks for reminding me - that was not one of my best days. BTW, it's sleeting here at our house!
First of all, you are such a great mom for making all of these memories! I love how your brother said that he is proud of you and your sister! So sweet! My favorite Christmas was the year I got my first real pony! Little Lady was delivered to my front door with a red bow tied around her neck. We took her around the neighborhood giving pony rides! All of my friends really liked that. The funny part is when a girl from down the street named Bethany got on Little Lady and she took off running. She must have known that Bethany was not nice and no one like her! LOL!!! I will never forget that year. I also remember opening the presents first then we would open the stockings. It was neat to see what was in the bottom under all the candy.
As usual, Beth, you are brilliant...love this idea!
My mother always made HUNDREDS of applesauce cakes during the holidays...using old coffee cans as pans and then wrapping the cakes in foil...for all of our neighbors, friends, busdriver, trash collector, mail main, etc. To this day, the smell of applesauce cake brings back happy memories.
I also remember being excited to get to go the Granny's because I knew my aunt Judy would be there and she always made chocolate covered cherries that were amazing. One year I ate so many that I puked all the way through church services...I haven't really eaten any since! And PaPaw was there, too. He was a really tall, sturdy man and, as kids, we would hold his hands, walk up his front, and flip off of his chest...Happy times!
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