Today as I was working on making peanut blossom cookies with the Hershey's Kisses on each one, my thoughts turned to missing my husband very deeply. The reason. He always took the foil off the Kisses and for the past three years, my granddaughter who took over the chore is living around the corner now. That's one memory. But another seems so vivid. I was about eight years old and I was sent to buy the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, My father was a steelworker and as happened frequently, the stieelworkers were on strike so money was tight. My fahter worked for a friend's store and took his pay in presents for his children.
I had five dollars. My friend went with me and with his wagon so we could bring the tree back. Now to get to the place where the VFW sold trees, we had to either cross the railroad tracks or go the long way. We managed to carry the wagon down the steps and off we walked the ten blovks to the slot whre the trees were sold.
Most of the trees had been sold but there was one my friend's uncle had held back. The tree was beautiful and between eight and nine feet tall. They did saw off the end and removed a few branches but our trip home was a horror story. The wagon was maybe four feet long and the tree hung over front and back. When we reached the house, my father and uncle came to carry the tree inside.
My father looked at me. "Couldn't you find a smaller one."
"They were ugly." I didn't know then about Charlie Brown Christmas trees. He hadn't appeared yet. With struggles they put the tree in the stand and set ii in acorner. My dad laughed. "We're only decorating the front. There aren't snough lights and decorations for the whole tree."
That's this year's Christmas memories. The tree one came about when my granddaughter felt sad because we're now using an artificial one.
May every one have great memories of Christmas and build new ones for next year.
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Thanks for sharing these precious memories, Janet. When I was a child, in France, Christmas was all about staying up all night, going to Midnight Mass, then returning home hungry (because we had fasted before communion). Then in the middle of the night, we would eat a big "reveillon" meal, with raw oysters and escargots my father had gathered, now cooked and drowned in butter, as well as other delicious foods reserved for special occasions. Then in the morning, while the adults were still sleeping and digesting the late feast, we would tiptoe to the shoes we'd left by the central stove, and check what presents were waiting for us.
ReplyDeleteGreat memories especially the feast.
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