My wish for Christmas is for each of us to wake up every morning and make this simple pledge…
Today I will be kind.
I will not judge,
or assume.
I will help when I can,
and learn from my mistakes.
I will appreciate the uniqueness of those around me,
and try each day to leave the world a little better than it was the day before.
Merry Christmas. 🎄
Well, here it is. We’ve made it to Christmas Eve. It sure felt like this month went remarkable quick! I’m sure all of you are up to your eyeballs with last minute tasks, as we are around here so I am going to cheat and repost part of my Postathon entry from Day 8. This covered the best part of our Christmas Eve traditions anyway!
My favorite tradition is one that Hubby and I began when Mr D was still a baby. After the children are all nestled (snug in their beds😉), we get ourselves an adult beverage and snuggle up to watch A Christmas Carol, the 1951 version with Alistair Sims, which is actually called Scrooge. There are many adaptations but that one is our favorite. Hubby has always thought he would make a rather good Ghost of Christmas Present! It’s quite cozy. We get to enjoy the calm before the storm, the lights from the tree and, I confess, we also eat Santa’s cookies.😊🎄
One of the joys of the holiday season is having faraway family and friends come to visit. Some of my favorite Christmas specials had to do with this theme. Anyone remember a movie with Ed Asner called “The Homecoming”? How about the “Eight is Enough Christmas” where all eight kids and their families come home to spend Christmas with dad?
Most of our family live nearby and we are lucky enough to see them often through out the year. The one exception is my nephew Kyle. He moved out to Los Angeles about 5 years ago and we all miss him terribly. The two weeks he spends at home during the holidays is one of our Christmas highlights. I love watching my children and the other cousins re-bond every year.
Squish!
At Christmas some people have company and other people are company. We have always been home and have hosted Christmas dinner ever since my children were babies. Hubby’s mom and brother and his family come as well as my sisters and their gang. This year the group will be smaller, just 14, because my nephew and two of my nieces will be spending the day with their spouse’s family. I’m a little bummed that we will have no baby Squish but I guess we have to share him sometimes!
I hope that you all are able to spend Christmas with the people who mean the most to you and that those of you traveling have a safe, pleasant trip.
Here we are in the home stretch! Can’t believe Christmas is just days away and I’ve managed to post (almost) everyday! 😊
Christmas is Christmas no matter the weather but I’m a white Christmas kind of girl. I’m sure if I’d grown up in Southern California instead of Southern New Jersey I would prefer warm holiday weather. All though, my sister-in-law did grow up in Southern California (in fact she attended Hollywood High) and since living on the east coast she said she could never go back to having a green Christmas.
I don’t like cold weather in general but there is something about snow fall on Christmas Eve that brings such peace and beauty to the holiday. It’s almost like the world is bejeweled!
For the past few weeks, the weather here has been unseasonably warm. The weather men are predicting 68 degree weather for the 25th so it doesn’t look like a white Christmas this year but I guess you never know. I’m hoping for a little Christmas magic.☺️
Here of a few of Miss Dee’s snow photos…
What follows is a story that is infamous in our family. It has been told to me by all my siblings and my parents. I was a principle player in this tale, however, I was much too young to remember it and much too innocent to be held responsible for my behavior. Certain parties have argued that point. I will let you, dear reader, decide for yourself…..
It all began mid December 1965. I was just turning three. My sister Linda was 15, Patty 14 and brother Jim was 10. All of them were old enough to know better.
Just saying.
The girls were well beyond the whole Santa thing and Jim was as well but not quite ready to admit it. I was at that age where I was just begining to understand the wonder of Santa and all the excitement of Christmas itself.
As a toddler, I was no more a morning person than I am as an adult therefore my mother had an awful time getting me up back then. Often, if she was busy getting breakfast for the school age kids, she would send one of them in to try and coax me out of bed.
One morning, my brother had the bright idea of telling me that it was Christmas morning and that Santa had come. The lie worked because I sprung out of bed and rushed out to see my presents. Naturally, when I realized the truth I had a meltdown like any three year old would. Mom yelled at Jim when she found out what he did but he and my sisters thought it was hilarious. They rolled off to school laughing while my mother was left to comfort me.
Over the next week or two they periodically convinced me it was Christmas morning just to get me out of bed. They sounded so sincere that I believed them every time. My mother warned them that they were going to pay for their mean spirited behavior.
Their payback came on December 25th.
The Christmas morning rule in our family was that everyone had to come out to the living room together. There are many Super 8 films of us in our pajamas, coming down the hallway, eyes closed, single file with our hands on each other’s shoulders, ready to start the unwrapping.
Well, that year, when Christmas morning finally came along, Jim and the girls were up at the crack of dawn, eager to get to their presents. Mom and Dad headed to the living room and set up the camera, all ready for us to make our entrance.
Guess who refused to get out of bed?
My three sibling, wild to get to their presents, pleaded and cajoled but I buried my head under the covers and refused to budge. They yelled out to my mom and dad but recieved no help. Mom told them that they had created the situation so they had to deal with it. I’m sure she had a very satisfied grin on her face.
I don’t know how long my parents let them stew before mom finally came in and told me that they were telling the truth. The Christmas morning home movie that year show me wandering out slowly rubbing my eyes and Linda, Pat and Jim close on my heals practically humming with desire to get to those gifts. I guess I was lucky they didn’t climb right over me!
My brother and sisters have always maintained that they were unfairly treated that Christmas morning 1965. My parents and I, however feel they got exactly what they deserved. What do you think?
I dropped the ball yesterday and never got to Day 19. My excuse is that I was busy celebrating my birthday and never even turned on the computer! Yesterday and today’s prompts work very well as a team anyway. So here goes…
This is actually perfect timing because at this moment there is an unadorned tree sitting in the living room waiting to be decorated. It will have, as it does every year, colored lights. It’s not that I have anything against white lights, in fact I think they are very pretty, it’s just that we’ve used colored ones for as long as I can remember so it’s kind of a tradition.
Now, for the tree, itself, it seems that most families have traditions involving that too; who pickles it out, who puts on the lights, who decorates it. In our family, hubby usually go and gets the tree. Miss Dee has been going with him the last few years and they’ve been getting it from the tree farm where Mr D works.
My job is to put on the lights. This became my job by default because no one else does it the way I like it. Since I’m being so fussy, I get to do it! Then we all decorate the tree together.
Everyone has ornaments that were given especially to them so those are the ones they put on. I have many that belonged to my grandmother or that I purchased before I got married. Hubby has lots of Eagles ornaments and others that he has collected over the years and of course each child has received many over the years.
We always keep the tree lights off while we decorate then after we are done we turn off all the house lights and turn on the tree. Of course we have to stand there and “Oooo” and “Ahhh” for a bit, appreciating our hard work.
Between you and me, I sometimes move some of the ornaments around when no one is looking. When the kids were little I had to do this because all the ornament were squashed onto the bottom half of the tree. I still do it because, again, I’m fussy.😊 Besides, for some reason all of the Eagles ornaments seem to end up front and center! I can usually find a much better spot around the side…on the bottom.
When I was young, my father was in charge of picking out the tree. My dad, how ever was both a procrastinator and very frugal so you can probably imagine the trees we had growing up! The one below is from 1963, the year I turned one. That’s my cute little rocking horse off to the left. As you can see, the tree is a tiny bit too tall! Dad was also known to drill holes in the trunk and “add” branches in the bare spots! My mom, the Queen of Tinsle, always managed to make them look pretty anyway.
I mean, let’s face it, all Christmas trees are beautiful. It’s part of the magic.🎄
Anyone who has pets knows that they are as much a part of the holiday celebration as the rest of the family. We buy them presents and make accommodations for them. We forgo the tinsel on our tree because it’s bad for the cats and we tie up the tree because the cats are bad for it! Last year Santa brought them a kitty tunnel that they were totally underwhelmed by. Maybe he will do better this year.😊
They have their stockings that Santa fills with treats each year and you know of course that Jack loves dressing up for the occasion!
On Christmas morning, Jack and Chrissy lay in the kitchen doorway and watch us open gifts. Chrissy has a thing for paper balls and I think she gets excited by all that paper tearing. Their predecessor Maggie the Cat would lay on the sheets of paper as soon as they hit the floor. We used to have to push her off so we could clean up! Eventually, we give them something out of their stockings and sometimes they like it and sometimes not so much. They are cats, after all! If it has catnip, it’s usually a hit.
When company start to arrive, they disappear. They’re not big on noise and chaos which is what our house is like by mid afternoon. They sleep away Christmas Day but in the evening as the quiet settles in and we sit down to relax they show up. They sniff all the new things and have some treats and Chrissy will curl up again under the tree.
I wonder what our pets think about Christmas?
When you are a parent with small children at Christmas time, gift giving becomes very tricky especially if you promote the whole “Santa thing”. Kids don’t think about Santa having a budget or limitations of any kind. He can get anything, otherwise he wouldn’t be Santa! Duh!
Parents, however, do have limits and sometimes they can only do so much.
We always told our children, when they were writing their Wish Lists, that they should not be greedy or frivolous. We stressed that they needed to really consider what they wanted and that they had to remember that there were many children in the world and only one Santa. It was possible that he might not be able to get them exactly what they wished for. We said it, but it didn’t mean they believed it, and as a mom or dad, the worst feeling in the world on Christmas morning is knowing that one special gift is not under the tree.
That is where my tale begins….
It was December 2002. Mr D was 7 years old and heavily into Marvel superheroes, an obsession that is still in effect so it was not a passing phase. The number one thing in his list to Santa was a “Spider-Man Sky Rider Playset” This was just what it sounded like: bridges, building, webs and a magnetic Spider-man that braves it all. Brand new and very popular, this proved to be a very elusive toy.
I looked everywhere for that thing! Every store I went to was sold out and no one could promise that they would be getting more in before Christmas. Even though online shopping wasn’t as common back then, I did check every web site I could find but they too were on back order. By the third week in December, I was panicking, especially since Mr D kept talking about how really hoped Santa would bring his “Spidey play set”!😬
As a last ditch effort, I called the manufacturer’s customer service number hoping someone could tell me when or where a shipment would be made in my area. The woman who answered the phone had to have heard the frantic edge in my voice as I told her about my son’s wish and my inability to find the “Sky Rider Play Set” anywhere in the known world!!
She told me that her name was Cathy and I think she might have been an elf, because, for a customer service person at a toy manufacturer a week before Christmas, she was incredibly pleasant and helpful. She searched all of the out going orders in the area but explained to me that the toy had been in such demand that they hadn’t been able to keep up the supply. I must have sounded very disappointed because finally she said,
“Let me see what I can do. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back.”
An hour later, my angel Cathy called back. She had found a “Sky Rider Playset” in storage there at the factory and offered to ship it to me!! I was so excited I rambled off my address and thanked her about a million times. She said that she didn’t want my son to be disappointed and was happy to be able to help.
It gets better.
The Playset arrived express mail two days later totally free of charge. Instead of finding a bill enclosed within the package I found a note that said:
A gift for your son. I hope he has a very Merry Christmas! -Cathy
Mr D enjoying his gift on Christmas morning
So, the best present I ever received was the knowledge that there are people out there willing to go above and beyond to make a child’s Christmas wish come true.
Thanks Cathy!
Christmas is a time for giving. This seems like an easy concept but no matter how good my intentions, life always seems to get in the way. Too much to do, too little time. You know the story.
It never feels as though I spend enough time or energy on giving back, not only at Christmas but during the rest of the year too. I’m sure this is something many people struggle with.
I decided that since I don’t seem to be able to accomplish any big acts of giving, maybe I could start with some smaller ones. The cool little list below was posted on a web site, encouraging people to print and post it so I did! It is now hanging on my refrigerator. Maybe by seeing it there each day before we go out into the world, my family and I will be encouraged to give more, even if it’s just a little at a time.
Here is the link in case you would like to print one of you own 😊❤️
I admit, I’m one of those people who love writing out Christmas cards (I also like filling out forms. I’m weird that way), although I don’t enjoy it as much when I am short on time and have to hurry and get them done. The joy is in taking time to write a personal note in each card and give a fancy little flourish to the signatures. I have even been known to purchase special pens to write them with and colorful stickers just to make the envelopes look especially festive!
Picking out the right cards is important too. Just like in wrapping paper, I tend to lean toward old fashioned Christmas themes, Santa and winter scenes with sleighs and sparkly trees. Hubby picks up what ever he finds at the dollar store, but he writes his own cards so that is totally his call. I buy bargain cards too but mine are expensive cards that have been marked way down. I was excited this year because I found a whole box of really top grade cards at the thrift store for one dollar! Yay, me!
One of my childhood Christmas cards
For a few years, when I was about 11 or 12, my mom asked me to design Christmas cards for us to send out. I would come up with an idea each year and then draw the picture on white paper. Mom and my sister came up with a verse for the inside and then we had them printed at a local shop. It was a lot of fun and made me feel like quite the little artist!
Recieving cards is a thrill for me too. Each day when I grab the mail I can’t wait to see how many we have received. I’ve noticed, though, that not as many people have been sending cards the past few years. Maybe it’s the expenses or perhaps they feel actual mail is a thing of the past! Not me! We open and read each one then they are taped to the inside of our front door, just like when I was little, so everyone can admire them. There they stay till well after Christmas. If it’s an especially lovely card, I will save it and use it for decorations or crafts.
What a great gift – Christmas Art delivered right to your door!
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