Christmas Memories of my Childhood
There are so many vivid memories and moments of Christmas and Christmas traditions that have shaped and formed how I wanted to instil the traditions of Christmas in my children. My mom made each holiday special and though there were many of us living on a very limited income, she did certain things that were special, very special.
There were many little things that made Christmas special. Christmas, of course, was centered around Jesus birth. Mom worked for the church and we went to services, plays and learned the Christmas story. The rest she added to teach us about giving and gracefully receiving.
Christmas started a couple of months before the big day with the 5 of us children passing the Sears Roebuck and JC Penneys catalogues back and forth, dog-earring the pages and circling and initially the items for Santa to bring. The reality was that we would only get 3 things each and one of those would be an item of clothing like a coat, boots or special outfit. This didn't stop us all from dreaming, hoping, planning and believing.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, we would buy a cut tree and decorate it with those big lights. Mom and Dad didn't really care how it turned out because it was our tree. We had tinsel garlands and the final touch was those tinsel icicles that would get static electricity and stick to us, our clothes and hands. It made us laugh. The decorating ritual included real hot chocolate and if there was a tin can of King Leo candy sticks we would have a peppermint stick in our hot chocolate, too.
Mom was so creative and many years we baked and decorated gingerbread houses from scratch. She made candy and fudge and lots of cookies as it took many to feed the seven in the family. She was a master cake decorator and we had many Christmas wreath or Christmas tree shaped cakes finished off with green tinted coconut placed on the icing to make it look more real.
On Christmas Eve we would scurry off to bed in anticipation. My big sister and I shared a room and we made a pact to take shifts staying awake to hear Santa come. Most years we lasted until about midnight and then the next thing we knew it was morning. We would wake up and go into the living room and look in our appointed areas where Santa knew to put our gifts. He didn't bother to wrap them as he knew Mom didn't want the extra mess, she had 5 children that did plenty of making messes without any additional help.
There always seemed to be one thing that I had not requested that Santa thought I needed or wanted and he was right. I was thankful and sensitive to the fact that Santa had a lot of us to take care of and though it wasn't close to what we had marked in the catalogues, it was about gratitude and being together.
These are the lessons I passed on to my children. Making it a tradition, teaching them what the real meaning of Christmas is to our family and making memories is Christmas. My children never got everything they requested either but they were grateful and learned to be generous and giving individuals.
This is my entry in Kathy Streib's Favorite Holiday Memory Contest. Thank you, Kathy, for hosting it and stepping in at the 11th hour.
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