“I love Christmas, not just because of the presents but because of all the decorations and lights and the warmth of the season.”
Today is warm and lovely. The breeze moves only the dead leaves and the smaller branches. I have to go out today, and I’m glad to go as the rest of the week will be quite cold.
When I was a kid, December days lasted forever. The closer we got to Christmas, the longer the day. When Santa Claus began his appearances every afternoon on TV from a New Hampshire station, the excitement only heightened. We started coloring nativity scenes in school. At home, we decorated the house and windows. Many of the decorations were cardboard. Most were pictures of Santa and his reindeer. We spent hour after hour looking through the Sears catalog and rewriting our lists for Santa. We complained of catalog hogging and not getting our turns. Writing lists for Santa was the highest priority.
My mother loved this time of year as she had a hold on us. She threatened to tell Santa when we were fighting and being bad. That stopped us. None us wanted coal even though I don’t think we even knew what coal was, but as it was part of the Santa threat, we knew it had to be really bad. We never got coal. Santa must have been generous in overlooking our transgressions.
I have ornaments my mother gave me, and I have several pieces exactly like those we had as kids. I found them here and there and at antique shops. One set is four Santa cups. The handles spell out noel. I always wanted the O. I have a few ugly elves I always put out, some angels and a slew of Santas (I’m taking liberty here and saying slews is the collective noun for Santas). All of the Santas are from the 50’s. Some of them light up. I like those the best.
It is getting close to decorating time. I always say I’ll bring up one bin a day, but that never happens. Once I get bitten by the decorating bug, I bring up bin after bin. I love my house after I’ve decorated. It looks and smells amazing.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
December 3, 2018 at 1:37 pm
I’m not much for decorating any more but I do have this idea of using my model railroad this year. The problem is cats and an Albin that eats just everything and my model railroad is the tiniest kind and he would swallow the locomotive without chewing it 🙂 🙂
I don’t think they ever showed Santa on tv when I was a kid. I guess they didn’t feel the need since we met him at Christmas eve. We did however look at the advent calendar they showed on tv. They started December 1st and ended on Christmas eve of course. The story wasn’t always about Christmas but the last episode did of course show it in some way. The all time favorite is a story about Mrs. Pepperpot. Every now and again she shrunk to the size of a tea spoon and always when it was most inconvenient of course 🙂 🙂 It is actually a Norwegian story but we Swedes took her to our hearts and every time they show reruns of any old shows with her (I think most were recorded in the 60’s and early 70’s loads of people will watch them 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
December 3, 2018 at 6:08 pm
Christer,
I think if I put down a railroad Henry would knock it off the rail and I can’t imagine what else he’d do. My cats too would have been batting and swatting the train.
Only that one station showed Santa Claus. For several years my mother would take us to see Santa at one of the department stores.We never saw Santa on Christmas Eve. We were told he’d only come if we were asleep.
I found this on Wikipedia, “Mrs. Pepperpot is a fictional character in a series of children’s books created by the Norwegian author Alf Prøysen. The first book in the series was printed in 1956. The main character, Mrs. Pepperpot, is a little old lady who lives in a cottage in the countryside together with her husband, Mr. Pepperpot. Mrs. Pepperpot has a secret – she occasionally shrinks to the size of a pepperpot, but nevertheless always manages to cope with the tricky situations that she finds herself in, at least partially thanks to the fact that upon shrinking she also gains the ability to understand and talk to all animals.”
Have a great day!
December 4, 2018 at 12:31 pm
We call her The Teaspoon lady over here 🙂
December 3, 2018 at 2:00 pm
The house is decorated, the ornaments are on the tree some from our parents home. Its a lovely remembrance of those times gone by. No one has the aluminum tree that my Mother loved. Oh well
As children we would be wondering at this time of year if we would be taken to Harrods to see the Real Father Christmas. Bentalls in Kingston had some scruffy imposter and you had to pay see him to get some nasty little gift. Meanwhile back at Harrods, I would dream of receiving an Annual from one of my favorite comics – the Victor or the Hotspur, enticing in their covers and certain to be full of stories to be read over and over again.
At St Mary and St Nicholas Church in Leatherhead, the choir would be put through their paces by Sid Hardacre the Choir Master as we prepared for the festivities. By tradition I read the first lesson on Christmas Eve. My young voice filled the darkened Norman Church, Mr Hardacre made sure that I was well practiced standing at the far end of the aisle correcting and adjusting my presentation., before the time came and I stepped out of the choir and on to the top step to look in to the congregation
My Mum would be there in the darkness ” For unto us a Child is Born, Unto us a Son is given”. It was magical.
December 3, 2018 at 6:22 pm
My Dear Hedley,
One year I made several ornaments for everyone. I didn’t do any for myself. When my mother passed, my sisters gave me some of those ornaments. I also have some my mother needlepointed for me. My tree, like yours, holds memories.
The Jordan Marsh Santa was good looking enough to be real. I always believed I was telling the big guy what I wanted, and I expected him to deliver. About the scruffy Santas, we got the old he’s just Santa’s helper excuse from my mother. We believed her. Mothers don’t lie.
Our church only had an adult choir for the longest time then a new priest started a boy’s choir. They sang on Christmas Eve and made the night even lovelier.
December 3, 2018 at 2:56 pm
Last night we attended a local attraction put on by the city of Richardson Texas, Santa’s Village. My daughter’s dance class was putting on a short performance. The lights were spectacular and the holiday spirit was on full display. Afterwards, we lit our Chanukah menorah and my daughter got her first gift and my son got an envelope containing cash. At 21 he is extremely difficult to buy anything he would like. Cash is always useful. The potato latkas will have to wait for another night.
Amazingly, the Santa Claus ruse used by parents to get the kids to behave worked when we were kids by my mother and we didn’t celebrate Christmas. I knew what a lump of coal was because my grandmother’s house had a coal fired boiler in the basement and I watched the coal deliverman fill the bin before they converted to natural gas.
We did put up stockings on Christmas Eve so as not to feel left out of the festivities even though we got our big gifts at Chanukah. Because the Jewish Calendar is a lunar calendar, the first night of Chanukah can occur before, during and even on Christmas Eve. Somehow my parents didn’t think Santa Claus or stockings and stocking stuffers were particularly religious.
Our modern North American image of Santa Claus was created almost exclusively by the holiday ads of the Coca Cola company. Their image of Santa in advertisements began in the 1920s and have continued today including the red suite and white beard. I think there version was loosely based on the poem “The Night Before Christmas”.
Did you know that the shots in the movie, “Miracle on 34th Street” of the Macy’s parade were shot during the actual 1946 parade? And, Edmund Gwenn, who played Santa in the film, actually played the Santa on the float in the parade that year.
Another cool clear day.
December 3, 2018 at 6:54 pm
Bob, check out Thomas Nast from the mid 19th century for the creation of the modern image of Santa Claus. There were many incarnations prior to that time but not in the style that we would recognize
December 3, 2018 at 7:20 pm
MDH,
Great minds and all that! I mentioned Nast and his Santa as well.
December 3, 2018 at 7:14 pm
Bob,
Everything this time of year seems magical. I didn’t learn anything about Chanukah and the menorah until I was in high school. At first I liked the idea of a present a night until I thought about how many I’d get. I always thought my nephews were difficult to shop for once they were around 15 or 16. I started giving them gift cards then.
I always think of it as the Santa Claus myth, not a ruse. My parents didn’t intend it to be a trick or a deception.
The description of Santa which we all know came from Thomas Nast. After hearing A Visit from St. Nicholas, he drew our Santa Claus. That was in 1853. Much later Santa2 was drawn for the Coca Cola company. He most closely resembled our Santa with his red suit and hat, black belt and pompom at the end of his hat.
I remember the book was published in 1947 because that was the year I was ( and you too) born. It was written based on the movie.
December 3, 2018 at 9:04 pm
I am very familiar with Thomas Nast as a political cartoonist who drew cartoons defeating the boss Tweed political machine in New York City. I had no idea he had anything to do with our image of Santa.
The threat to receive a lump of coal on Christmas sounds like a ruse to me. They were tricking us into behaving without ever actually planning to give us a lump of coal.
I never knew that Miracle on 34th Street was made into a book. However, the joke in NYC for yesrs was, does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s? 🙂
December 3, 2018 at 9:10 pm
Bob,
Nast is really well know for those political cartoons you mentioned, but he was most decidedly the creator of how our Santa came to be.
I guess I don’t like the use of ruse. That has such negative connotations. Maybe idle threat would be a better choice.
The guy who wrote the movie decided to turn it into a book.
December 3, 2018 at 5:52 pm
Coal wasn’t a threat here, this region lived on black coal mining. This month the last two coal mines shut down after about 200 years of industrial mining . It’s about time.
December 3, 2018 at 7:18 pm
Birgit,
Trump has guaranteed to reopen coal mines here, and, according to him, they will only mine clean coal.
December 3, 2018 at 9:09 pm
Also, he expects GM to reopen car plants in Michigan. Maybe he believes in Santa Claus. Maybe he believes in Ded Moroz, (Russian Father Frost), aka Vladimir Putin. 🙂