Our Christmas Stories
I love your memories Judy... They are definitely the essence of Christmas. I think that is the very reason that as we get older Christmas is happy AND so very sad too. Those wonderful memories and those we love are still living in our minds and hearts...now we see the grief that our parents felt as they got older.
Julia
Well, I don't have a "special story" to tell, just wonderful memories of special rituals.......
My father loved the holidays - he loved to cook special meals and have the whole family together. Christmas was extra special because besides cooking, he loved decorating the house. Getting the tree was a big event - would never consider an artificial tree, only a huge scotch pine, he loved the smell. Besides the tree, he would get branches to decorate the archway with and the door. The tree would always have to be cut down to fit, and tied so the banister so it wouldn't get knocked over. While he strung the lights, Mom and my brothers and I would string the popcorn and cranberry garland - 10 popcorn, one cranberry, repeat, repeat and repeat! There would always be construction paper chains too. And then the ornaments, and finally the icicles!
Christmas Eve was Midnight Mass and then an Open House. Dad would prepare a feast, and you never knew who would show up - friends, neighbors and relatives.
Everyone had secrets during this time -- shopping bags hidden in closets and under beds. It would be difficult to get to sleep Christmas Eve night - but in the morning we would find our filled stockings at the foot of the bed - that's how we knew Santa had come and gone - we'd rush downstairs and the tree would be surrounds with toys and wrapped presents - there were seven of us - Mom and Dad, my four brothers and me! I remember one year when we were older, we decided to get Mom a Mother's Ring. We special ordered it - all different stones, it was beautiful. We also got her a tea kettle to fool her. We wrapped the kettle in gift paper, and hung the ring on the tree as a hidden ornament. While she was "pleased" with her kettle, she was thrilled with the ring - it was a special moment for us.
Christmas Day dinner was another of Dad's Big Productions. I remember one year he bought a service of 25 blue and white platters, because our usual dinner plates were not big enough! And as my brothers grew older and got married, they learned they had to have two Christmas Dinners - one at the in-laws, and one at home.....Dad made it clear! After he passed (he was 54) Mom took the pressure off -- for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day she would have dinner at one of my brother's homes, and she would have a family dinner the Saturday after - relieving my brother's of "double duty dinners".
I've tried to make the holidays special, but it's not the same - I live in Massachusetts, and my brothers live in New York (except one that just moved to California to live with his and his wife's daughter and her husband and son -- they love the role of grandparents!) My husband Mick did not have a close family, and we only had Maura. When she was younger we would drive down to New York. Then Mick passed, and a year later Mom moved in with Maura and I because she wa suffering from Alheimers. She got sick a year later, and died a month after from Cancer.
Mick and I made Christmas special for Maura - the decorations and meals, and every year I got an Angel Ornament for Maura for the tree. But with Mick and Mom gone, we have quiet celebrations. Jim and Maura were not that close, and he was not big on holidays. This year I spent Thanksgiving at Maura's and will spend Christmas there too -- so the traditions are being passed down to her. I gave her just about all of my holiday decorations a few weeks ago - I've put up a small table-top tree and a wreath and some small figurines and candles.
The cycle of life.....goes on and on. I've always loved the holidays - Now I'm Grammy and I'm enjoying spoiling Taylor, and helping Maura as best I can.
Happy Holidays Everyone -- they are a time to reflect and remember our loved ones, and do our best to make the holidays special.
HW: 380 SW: 324 GW: 175
Mary,
It's so nice to have so many fond memories. I am sure you are making so many special memories for your grand babies too. I, too, gave my decorations to my kids. All the ones we made and the ones I bought...I divided them down the middle and it is so nice to see the decorations of my kids' trees and hear the grandkids tell the stories that their parents have told them...Memories are extensions of life and a guarantee of immortality.
My Christmas Memories
My family wasn't rich, but we weren't poor. Dad had a secure job at a steel mill, after leaving the coal mine in the early 1950's. Mom was a housewife, who looked down on any working mother, including me. We had clothes, and food, and Mom and Dad smoked. There was plenty of beer, and other alcohol, for entertaining.
My memories of this time of year are a mixed bag of good and bad. I have one bad memory of Dad having a drunken episode where he tore the house apart, knocking the tree over, and destroying the presents. I was about six then.
After Kindergarten in public school, my parents sent me, and only me, to Catholic school. Christmas is a big time in the Catholic church, and I learned the Christmas story very young. We always did silhouettes of the Holy Family Nativity that decorated every window of the school. That was probably the extent of art education in that school. Well, that, and making carnations out of Kleenex tissues in May for the Holy Mother, Mary.
My favorite memory of Christmas was getting all the decorations out of the cubby hole above the garage. We didn't call it an attic, because we accessed it through a tiny door in my bedroom, which we crawled through. Plus, we couldn't stand up in it. After artificial trees were marketed, Dad bought a really big one, and I would help him set it up. Of course, there was the annual testing, and cursing of the string of lights. Then, I would open the big box, with my favorite. The nativity set that Daddy bought way back in the 1950's at W.T. Grant. It has a wooden stable, and figurines. We had real hay when I was a kid. The baby Jesus isn't attached to the manger, so we didn't put him in it till Christmas Eve. Mom finally gave it to me when my kids were little, and I gave it to Colleen. It was made in Italy.
Here is a picture of Franklin with it now.
I also loved, and still love, the baking. Mom had a nut grinder, so my job was chopping pounds of walnuts. Mom had some awesome cookie recipes, and I loved them all, except the hermits. They were a cookie that had nuts and raisins, and I hate raisins. Plus, Mom had a recipe for nut and poppyseed roll, which is a sweet bread that is rolled out, then either nuts and sugar, or poppyseed mixture is spread, then they are rolled up, and after they rise, they are baked. These are long, like the length of a cookie sheet. Needless to say, cooking class in junior high was really boring, because I already knew how to measure, and sift, to bake things. Mom would double and triple her recipes, and then hide all the cookie tins, coz my brother, sister and I would sneak tastes long before Christmas. One year, in July, I went into the cubby hole to get Mom the huge pot she used for canning, and cooking many ears of corn. My Dad's sister made one of her rare, really rare trips to visit. I think in the 18 years I lived at home, she only visited twice. I hardly knew her, till I lived at her house for three months when I was 14. We lived two hours from where my parents grew up, where their parents and siblings all lived. So, anyway, when I found the big pot, I heard a rattle in it. There was a tin of chocolate chip cookies from Christmas in it. Because Mom packed them with tons of waxed paper, and sealed the tin with tape, they were still good to eat. We had a good laugh at the fact that Mom had hidden them so well, that somehow they ended up all the way in the cubby hole. It's a miracle we didn't have ants in there.
Another sad memory is that Mom's older brother, Uncle Frankie, died around Christmas when I was 13. Uncle Frankie had a bad heart attack in early December that year. Mom asked the family if she should come up to see him in the hospital, and everyone told her not to. He was still in the hospital over Christmas, but everyone felt so hopeful he would be discharged right after the holiday, so Mom's younger brother, brought his family, and her sister to visit us the day after Christmas. Well, we got a phone call that Uncle Frankie died the next day, so we all packed up, and made the trip back to Wilkes Barre, to attend the viewings and funeral. I was close to his sons, coz we stayed at their house a lot when we visited up there. It really shook me that my cousins, 13, 10 and 7 had just lost their father. I was terrified that one of my parents would die when I was a young girl too. I never dreamed my Dad would die six years later, when my brother was just 11.
I have tried to give my kids positive memories of Christmas, and though I admit that when they were kids, I sometimes wasn't my healthiest. But, their Dad was wise in taking us out of town, away from the chaos of Mom, to a cabin outside of Gettysburg, about four years in a row. They have many memories of us buying a live tree a few days before Christmas, shopping at a local mall for last minute gifts, the smell of ham roasting in the oven, and taking snowy walks in the woods. Not to mention the endless trips to visit the battlefield, where their Dad repeatedly told the stories of what happened each day there. He was a huge Civil War buff, and knew that particular battle by heart. Now they laugh about it, but back then they just rolled their eyes, every single Christmas we were there. We also took about four summer trips to the same cabin, and of course the same battle areas.
Albert Schweitzer
Trish, I LOVE the nativity scene! I have one similar that was my grandmother's. It is big and sometimes I do put real hay in it, too. But it is packed away and I think it shall stay that way for a few more years. Better safe than sorry.
I will share another Christmas story tomorrow, and in it, my dad also had a little too much Christmas cheer. I think that happens more often than is realized.
Love you!
Vickie
Trish,
I love your memories. My older brother, who was serving in the war when I was barely 1 sent my mother a beautiful nativity scene from Germany. It had a detachable baby Jesus too and we left him and Mary out of the scene until Christmas Eve.My older sister took it before Mom died and every single time I see it at her house, I want to scream that she had no right taking every thing...and when I say everything, she has everything.
It is always good to pass those things down to our kids.
I really enjoyed reading your memories Pat. I have one of my own Dad's heart attack before Christmas too. He was in his 40s when he had his first. I also remember the turmoil that could come at holiday times...the stress and money spent caused some issues that would boil over. I guess these stories really do show us how similar some of our experiences are. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Julia
Hi Everyone!
I've been crazy busy this week between getting ready for Christmas and working, but I didn't want to miss this 'special edition' of our posts.
I am going to have to fly by the seat of my pants b/c I had no time to prepare...so bear w/me!
Christmas was always a big deal to both my parents. My dad had been raised in a poor coal mining town in PA and had 9 sisters & brothers. He was only 12 when his dad passed away, and the family had to survive on their own. It meant a lot to him to be able to provide a generous Christmas for us 5 kids courtesy of his white collar job as an IRS agent...lol! My mother was an only child so she absolutely loved the holidays and went way out to celebrate them. Her parents moved in with us when I was 6 so we had 9 ppl living under 1 roof. There was always a lot of hustle & bustle...especially during Christmas!
My mom & Nonny started baking and decorating weeks before the holiday. They let my sister and me help w/the cookies, but they made fudge, fondue, and fruitcake as well as a million other goodies! My dad & brothers ate while they baked, and I fondly remember my mom telling my dad: 'Now Joe, you've had enough! Get out of the kitchen!' It was all in good humor.
I remember quite a few years where my oldest brother broke into the locked candy closet to steal some of the Christmas goodies, but I don't remember him ever getting in big trouble for it. I think mom made more than necessary knowing how young men can devour sweets!
We would also pile into the old station wagon...remember the ones w/the rear bench seat that looked out the rear window...to look at the houses decorated in lights. that was one of my favorite things to do. Mom & dad were always so happy and us kids rarely argued during those rides.
I remember those old bulbs and my dad & brothers stretching them out & testing them before stringing the house. Didn't matter...seemed every year one would go out and sometimes affect the whole line. Now THAT would get my dad to cussing!
Christmas Eve we often went to Midnight Mass. We would be glad to get home and get to bed to wait for Santa. We would listen for his sleigh...(my mom shaking some small bells she had!) and knew we better get to sleep or we'd get coal in our stockings!
My next oldest brother always came to get me before going downstairs early Christmas morning. We'd sneak downstairs before anyone else got up, but that lasted about 5 minutes. We always got most of what we asked for. One of my favorite years was when I got my easy bake oven!
Mom and Nonny always cooked a feast for dinner and we ate until we were stuffed (some traditions never end!) My mom used to pass around those after 8 mints and I would always eat more than anyone else...til I felt sick. But sharing meals was such an important tradition...I felt loved & secure.
Going back to my dad...since he lost his dad young it was important to stay close to his siblings. The day after Christmas we would all pile in the station wagon again for the 'Christmas visits.' We went to each aunt & uncles home over the next few days and played with our cousins while the grown ups talked and drank and drank and talked! I remember grown ups falling into Christmas trees knocking everything off, loud, loud laughter, and loads of food.
One of my funniest memories...which would NOT be considered funny now...is my mom driving us all home from one of our uncles houses b/c dad was so drunk. He was laying in the back seat while all 5 of us kids were in that rear-facing seat telling mom how to drive. She kept turning around to answer him and weaving when she did so. Next thing we know a cop is pulling us over. He comes to the window & begins to ask my mom if she's been drinking b/c of the weaving, and dad slurs out some more directions to mom not realizing a cop was there! The cop looked in the back seat, sees dad drunk as a skunk, and says to my mom: 'You got enough problems, lady. You go ahead home. Drive safely!'
It was one of those stories that got told over and over for years!
I'll stop here b/c as we grew older the holidays were not always fun.
Jeannie, your story made me cry. How awful to lose your mom that young & that close to Christmas! It scars you for life! But what a strong woman! She carried herself so well despite being so sick...and I remember those awful cobalt treatments and the blue scars on my grandfather who died from lung cancer! Things you never forget!
Julia, again, how traumatic to be so young & in the hospital for Christmas! I cannot imagine having to go thru that as a child. It was good to hear how well your parents carried on the holiday for you despite the cir****tances...Christmas was so magical for us as kids, and it seems we believed in Santa forever!
I will continue tomorrow and respond to Vickie, Mary, and Judy.
Have a good night!
Kathy
