Christmas Memories

Well, I thought I would post about our Christmas when we were children. I have a few pictures that were in a scrapbook that I made, so I just picked up my camera and took a picture of each Christmas page. My mom has the original pictures lost in her basement somewhere, so this is the best I could do!

My mother used to read Christmas stories to me with such expression!

 Little Golden Book collections. I loved looking at all the colorful pictures. I also loved watching all the Christmas shows. One in particular was the animated show "The Little Drummer Boy". I would get all fuzzy and warm when Aaron came to play his drums for baby Jesus because he had no gift to bring and I think that's why to this day I love the song Little Drummer Boy. I received a record player for Christmas one year and the single of Little Drummer Boy and I just thought that was the greatest thing! I listened to it over and over! Rum pa pum pum, me and my drum....

Me and my middle brother Mike.

When Rudolph the red-nose reindeer came out, that was my next favorite to watch. What a classic, even today! I have collected a Bobblehead Rudolph, Santa, the Abominable Snowman and Hermie the elf who wanted to be a dentist. The figures look exactly like the characters in the show. I also have a Jim Shore collectible of the Snowman and Rudolph. I've collected quite a bit of Christmas STUFF through the years. Now I just need another room to store everything. Every year I see something else I'd like to have! I think maybe it's a .....sickness....?

When we were kids, Christmas was always a happy time of the year. We were very fortunate. We always had all kinds of goodies to eat and lots of candy. I remember the colorful ribbon candy, so pretty to look at, but just didn't like it. Hershey's kisses....mmmmmmm....still my favorite! My parents would go to Amish country and buy different kinds of cheeses, pepperoni, crackers, etc. Lots to eat!

I would get so excited about decorating the Christmas tree and even to this day, I still love decorating my tree! I'm one of those early birds that some people think are a little ridiculous, but I'm the one doing all the decorating and need time to do it in, so I put my tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving every year, and Thanksgiving weekend we do the outside decorating.

My brother Mike, me, and in the far right bottom, my youngest brother Dan. Oh, we were having so much fun!

I remember my Dad and Mom would get our tree around the middle of December. We always had a fresh tree for many years. Ahhhh...the smell of fresh pine, nothing like it to remind you of Christmas. I couldn't wait to help with the tree, but my Dad would always let it sit out in the garage for a couple of days to let the branches drop before we did any of the decorating.

Then the fun began. My Dad would always do the icicles...those silver wrinkled ones that you could throw on in bunches, unlike the smooth looking ones they make today. But my Dad was very particular about how he put them on, so they always looked nice. And the bubble lights...oh how I loved those lights!

My brother and I, and my Dad and his brother.

Ornaments, candy canes, garland, and when it was finished, we would sit back in delight and enjoy the beauty of our Christmas tree! This is exactly what I do today. I love putting the tree up early and enjoy looking at it and the soft light that comes from it. It only comes once a year and it brings with it memories of Christmas magic from the past.

Christmas memories are something to cherish forever. My parents always made sure it was a magical time for us! I hope your Christmas memories were wonderful too!

Getting things done!

Well, in the last few days, I scrubbed my carpets, downstairs, steps, and hallway only, cleaned the furniture in the living room with my new Bissell, and steam cleaned my dining room and kitchen floors. I was truly amazed at how dirty the water was when emptying the bucket in the scrubber! Disgusting! I feel better now knowing they are clean. Now I'm just waiting for the next time my cat decides to vomit on my clean carpet!!
I know it will happen sooner or later, but I have my little Bissell machine for small cleanups. All this cleaning drives me crazy! So much work to be done for the holidays! When I start with the decorating I just clean as I go. I could dust and two days later, the dust is back! It takes me almost two weeks to decorate. This is why I'll be starting soon. I can only do a little every day since I work evenings....cleaning....doctor's office's!! But it always gets done! I'm like the energizer bunny. I just keep on going!!

Weekend Shopping

 Well, yesterday I went to the Craft 2000 store with my husband and my sister-in-law. What a nice store! It was my first visit there.  Even though it's October, they still had some Christmas things in the store! How I love Christmas. I always try to refrain from buying to much at these kinds of stores because I really do have plenty of Christmas decorations. But when you see all the cute things that are out there....it's very hard to do. I bought some candles and things for fall, and then when I came home, I ordered snowflake garland for my 5ft. Alpine tree! I must have been in the spirit. About that Alpine tree...it's a prelit tree that I use all year long and decorate it according to the seasons. I had to take off all 200 lights on the tree because they kept burning out on me. What a job that turned into! They really do a good job concealing the lights on prelit trees. The wires were twisted around each branch...ugh...I had to cut out all the wires from 200 lights or I would have been there much longer than I already was! Very time consuming! I replaced them with 150 lights and it doesn't look to bad after I put all the fall decorations back on it. I just ran the strings of lights from top to bottom back up to the top, pushed them in among the branches, and it's not to shabby. I would never be able to wrap strings of lights around each branch to conceal     the wires like the prelits. What a job that would be. I think there must have been a short in the wires somewhere. On the bottom half of the tree, the insides of the bulbs were black. I'm wondering if all that twisting of the wires and wrapping them so tight onto the branches could have caused it to short out. So, now it's done and for the winter season, I decorate it with snowflakes and I thought snowflake garland would look nice. We will definitely be going back to visit the Craft 2000 store next month. I'm sure they'll have a lot more Christmas things by then. I'll just need a bigger house to put out all of my decorations..just kidding..!  

My woodland tree for fall.

First Christmas Gift

  Well, I bought my first Christmas present yesterday. It's for my sister-in-law. Saw it on http://www.iqvc.com/. I love it and I think she will too. I can't say what it is because she may read this. I sent her an email with a Christmas background and a Christmas song. I told her ho ho ho, he he he, bought you a Christmas gift from QVC. No hints as to what it was. I don't think I've ever bought a Christmas gift this early. It could turn out to be a good idea to start early in the year instead of waiting until November.

Holiday Craziness

Comments by ZingerBug.com

  




Well, the Thanksgiving weekend is winding down. It was nice having four whole days off in a row! It gave me a chance to finish decorating for the holiday. It's only taken me just about two weeks to get it all done! Isn't that just crazy? This is why I need to get started early. I don't have all day to devote to just decorating because I work evenings, so I just do two or three...if I'm lucky...hours a day until I'm done. I'm so glad it's done!! I had Thanksgiving dinner at my house. It was a good day and everyone enjoyed the food. It seems like no matter how much you try to prepare ahead and clean things up as you go, you still end up with a huge mess to clean up at the end of the day. It's not just the dishes, it's extra tables and chairs that were set up, extra food table, sweeping the carpet, putting everything away, making room in the refrigerators for the leftovers and just putting your house back together again! Whew! But, I do like having people over for the holidays or I wouldn't do it.






Now...a little more Christmas craziness...Black Friday, the biggest holiday shopping day of the year. Stores opening at 4:00 a.m., people standing in line to get into the store at 2:00 a.m. for those great sales. I did this once with my husband, but never have since. He loves to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. He was up at 3:00 a.m. as I was just going to bed. I told him to have fun. He met up with his sister, shopped for a while, had breakfast, and was home by noon. His gifts were wrapped and are now under the tree.
Mine are still in boxes waiting to be wrapped...by me...and before you know it with all of the shopping, decorating, inviting friends and family over for dinner, visiting with others, etc., Christmas is here...and gone...in just a day. It's amazing how much of your time goes into preparing for one day. I get a little sad after it's over because I really enjoy this time of the year. Then reality sets in and I'm looking at two more weeks of taking down decorations and putting them all away. Yikes!!! But I'll do it again next year. I love the music, the lights and decorations, the Christmas movies, the yummy cookies, the food...but not the weight gain that comes with that...the wine to help me get through it all, the closeness of family and friends, and to help someone else have a better Thanksgiving and Christmas with a donation or a tag from a Christmas tree for gifts. It's a magical time of the year for me which I will always keep in my heart.

Cat in the tree

Comments by ZingerBug.com  
 I had to laugh when I saw this graphic. It reminded me of my cat we used to have who is no longer here. I was sitting at the dining room table eating and you can see the tree from the dining room. When I turned to look at the tree, I noticed Casey's tail swaying back and forth from the bottom of a tree branch. He was just sitting inside my tree looking out at me. I wasn't real happy with this and chased him out of the tree.  We laughed about it afterward, but hoped he wouldn't continue getting into the tree. I guess he thought he had a little of the outdoors in the house. One year my dog also thought he had a little of the outdoors inside since he used the tree as his own personal bathroom. Animals! 

Decorating the Tree

Comments by ZingerBug.com   It's almost that time of the year when we dig out the tree and make it beautiful with all of the ornaments that we have collected over the years. Some people put up many trees...God Bless them...I put up a large one and a pencil tree on my sunporch. I do love to decorate the tree, but I have found that as I get older, it gets to be a little more work. When my children were small, we would look for a real Christmas tree, ahhh, the fresh smell of pine, nothing like it at Christmas time. Sometimes there would even be small pinecones on the tree and the warmth from the lights on the tree would make the pine cones crackle.  It was fun...and cold...looking for the perfect tree, but something you will always remember. 
 We did the real trees for a long time and then decided to get an artificial tree. I've had at least four artificial trees. They started out large and then became smaller throughout the years...it must have something to do with the getting older thing! I used to string the lights on and now they are prelit and I must say I like the prelit trees. The lights are strung on nicely so that you can barely see the wire.
My tradition is to have some wine while decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music. It usually takes me all day to finish the tree. Something I find very upsetting is when you get the tree up and plug it in.....guess what....half of the lights work and the other half don't. Nice. This happened after we had bought a tree at Pool City, had it up one Christmas and the following Christmas half of the lights were out. Tested the lights, couldn't find the problem, went to Pool City, took the receipt to show we had it only one year, and they gave us a bunch of replacement lights...with a plug only on one end. Nothing else they could do...nothing else...we paid $300.00 for this tree and that's the best you can do???? Well, I tried to put these lights on a prelit tree and it just wasn't getting it if you know what I mean, so I got really upset after arguing about it with my husband, took the tree apart, stuffed it back into the box, kicking it into the box, sort of like Chevy Chase did in Christmas Vacation, when he got upset because his lights weren't working and he started kicking Santa and the reindeer all over the front lawn...I can relate to that. Anyway, we took it to the nearest dumpster and bought another one. It seems like every year I have some sort of light problems to deal with....yikes....but after it's all done, the tree and the outside decorations, look beautiful. I will always decorate a tree for Christmas even when I'm much older, even if it's just a pencil tree or a tabletop tree. I'll never forget that Christmas magic.