There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays: Perry Como
Posted December 23, 2025 by katryCategories: Video
“Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance – each beautiful, unique, and gone too soon.”
Posted December 23, 2025 by katryCategories: Musings
Today is cloudy and cold. Light rain is predicted. That seems so bah-humbug, but the adult me is happy about the forecast. The child in me is disappointed.
We’ve always called today Christmas Eve Eve. On our Advent calendar for the 23rd, shepherds and a lamb or two were often inside the little door. They were getting ready for the big day. We always knew that on the 24th, the Nativity was inside the door flap. The shepherds and angels were always there. I remember many of our Advent calendars had silver glitter. Some always fell off when you opened a door. We used to take turns opening the little doors.
My mother baked all the traditional sweets for Christmas. Always, there were sugar cookies and spritz cookies. I have her spritz maker. It took me a while to learn to drop the dough so the cookies were the perfect shape. I color mine red and green. Sometimes the dough is both colors when I switch from one color to another. My mother made pies, always an apple and a lemon meringue. One year, when I was an adult, my mother made bread in the shape of a gingerbread man and also made biscotti.
I remember one year we had a two week Christmas vacation. The school district was trying to save money by not having to heat the buildings. I went right away to my parents’ house. It was the best time. Every day, my mother and I baked cookies, all sorts of cookies, even new ones we’d never made. While the cookies were baking, we’d play Big Boggle. My mother would have her signature drink, whiskey and coke. I’d have egg nog and Kahula. After the last cookies came out of the oven, we’d clean up the kitchen and keep playing Big Boggle. We used to put the new cookies on Christmas plates on the dining room table for everyone to taste. We ran out of Tupperware containers. They were filled with cookies and piled under the table.
Today I need to do a bit of shopping including buying a good piece of meat for my Christmas dinner. That description of the meat had my sister and me roaring laughing. That is what my father always said. I don’t remember the last time I heard it, this dad memory. It just popped right out of memory drawer. I’m so glad it did.
“The magic of Christmas shines through each little light.”
Posted December 22, 2025 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: Christmas, Christmas tree, family, holidays, life
I apologize for the lateness of the hour. I slept in having gone to bed even later than the wee hours then I took my time savoring the morning. I finished the word puzzles and the crossword, always a good sign.
The morning is lovely though wintry cold. The high today will be 30°. I have no intention of facing the weather. I am actually going to clean starting with the living room. The dust balls have taken over, fodder for a Stephen King novel, okay maybe a short story.
The last day of school before vacation was fun. We colored, wandered the classroom and had a party. We all brought something. Chocolate chip cookies outnumbered all the rest. Sometimes they’d be sugar cookies. I’d grab one of those. They are Christmas to me. I think I ran home once we were dismissed.
I loved the living room with the lamps unlit and only the tree lights gleaming in the dark. They were always big, colored bulbs which got hot to the touch. On the ends of the branches were the bubble lights, my favorite lights. We’d sit and look at the tree right to left and left to right hoping to be the first to see the bubbles. I loved watching the red and green bubbles. My mother put her big glass ornaments on the tree. They were always safe on the top branches we couldn’t reach. When my mother gave us all some of the ornaments from our childhood trees, she gave each of us a big ornament. I always put mine on a top branch.
We had turkey for Christmas dinner, almost a repeat Thanksgiving. I never minded as I liked turkey and all the turkey dishes which came after, especially open face turkey sandwiches on bread, toast I think, covered in gravy with a side of cranberry sauce. My father always picked the turkey clean so my mother could make turkey salad and turkey soup.
My mother always put a few wrapped presents under the tree. We knew we’d open new pajamas on Christmas Eve. We didn’t have a choice. We needed to look good for pictures. My sister always tore a tiny hole in the wrapping paper of every present under the tree, all of our presents, not just hers. She had a talent. Just that little peek was enough for her to identify each present. Over time, she honed her craft. She could shake a present and know exactly what it was. She never missed.
Only two more days until Santa.
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas: Gayla Peevey
Posted December 20, 2025 by katryCategories: Video
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 