Christmas Traditions

The holiday season always tends to make me a bit retrospective and this year is no exception. Over the last few days I have been thinking a lot about Christmas traditions--especially those of my own family. So I have decided that over the next few days I will share a few thoughts and memories with you. Some of them you may even want to try for yourself. Christmas was always the favorite holiday for my Daddy. I have never seen anyone enjoy a season as much as he did. He just seemed to come alive. Mama also enjoyed it tremendously, but, of course, she had the majority of the work and preparation to handle. When I think back to Christmas my first thoughts are always of my Dad.

On the day after Thanksgiving we always got our Christmas tree. When I was very young Daddy would take us to the country and he would cut down our tree—usually a beautiful cedar. It smelled so good! (Later my Mom got one of the new silver aluminum trees with the rotating color light wheel and put all blue balls on it. After a few years we progressed to the artificial Scotch pine!) Daddy would usually end up saying a few choice words while trying to get it in the tree stand and it usually wasn't ever quite straight but Mama never complained. We would just adjust the decorations to make it appear straight! Once the tree was in the house Mama would insist on letting it “fall out” overnight. Then on Saturday we would begin the decorating. Daddy would get the decoration from the attic and Mama always put on the light strings. Then we got to help with the ornaments and tinsel. My brothers liked to just throw the tinsel on but I would very carefully lay each strand carefully in place. Whatever we did the tree always turned out beautifully. When we finished we would have a cup of cocoa and then it was time for bed. During the night many colorful presents would appear under that tree. We had a very large family and many friends with which we exchanged gifts. And by the time Christmas Eve arrived there would be so many gifts under the tree that there would hardly be room for Santa!

Until next time...