Posted tagged ‘Christmas’
(Everybody’s Waitin’ For) The Man with the Bag: Kay Starr
December 17, 2011Ole Tex Kringle: Tex Ritter
December 17, 2011Christmas Everyday: The Miracles
December 17, 2011“Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance – each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.”
December 17, 2011Last night was cold, but today we’re back up to 50°. The sun is in and out of the clouds making the day bright but not sunny. I have to refill the feeders later and I’m glad my fingers won’t freeze. Earlier was already warm enough for me to stand outside for a little bit watching Gracie. She ran like a crazy dog around the yard, came in and got her snack, always two biscuits, then she flopped down on the couch for her morning nap. That’s where she still is. One cat, Fern, is on the couch in the living room, and the other, Maddie, just went down the cellar. I suspect she might be mouse hunting.
Later I have some shopping to do so I’m gearing up to fight the crowds at the supermarket and curse the wagons left in the middle of the aisles. My list is small and for that I am thankful. I hate grocery shopping.
Gracie and I went for a ride to see the lights the other night. I was far more enthused than she. I pointed out to her all the wonderfully lit houses, lamented the dark ones and laughed a bit at the “at least they did something houses.” I saw lit Christmas trees through windows and a few plastic Santas on lawns. Those Santas reminded me of my childhood when plastic Santas were the newest Christmas decorations. I have a few myself I’ve collected over the years but haven’t used them in a while. I think next year they’ll be perfect for the deck. It will be like a Santa convention.
When I was young, we used to string popcorn for the tree and a couple of times we added the cranberries. We’d sit at the kitchen table with the bowl of popcorn in the middle for us to share. It took a delicate push to get the needle through without breaking the kernel, but no matter how gently we tried, the table was usually strewn with broken pieces of corn kernels. We’d munch as we worked figuring the popcorn was as much for eating as threading. When our strands were ready, we’d each take our own and place it on the tree looped from branch to branch. We’d then step back to admire our work and how pretty it looked on the tree. When Christmas was over, the strands went outside for the birds.
We stopped doing popcorn when my dog Shauna decided the Christmas tree was for snacking. We caught her eating the popcorn enough times that we gave up before she pulled the tree down during her snack time. Shauna was a great one for sniffing out treats from just about anywhere. She always found her present under the tree. She’d pull it out from the pile and unwrap it then settle down to eat her present. She was always on Santa’s nice list.
What Will Santa Claus Say When He Finds Everybody Swinging: Louis Prima and the New Orleans Gang
December 16, 2011Christmas Time with You: David Ian with Andre Miguel Mayo
December 16, 2011This is from David’s album Vintage Christmas.
“Alas! How dreary would be the world if there was no Santa Claus! There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.”
December 15, 2011Today is cloudy, but a few patches of clouds are backlit. That’s where the sun is hiding. The day is damp as it rained during the night, but it’s warm, the last warm day for a while. I went to UPS and sent the packages for Colorado on their Christmas trek. That was the most important item to cross off my to-do list. The other items have no time constraint other than the big day. My back is a bit iffy today so I’ve decided today is my do little or nothing day.
I remember one Christmas Eve when my mother sent me to the corner store, probably for bread. I rode my bicycle so there wasn’t any snow. I remember riding my bike down the grass hill beside the steps leading to the street, something my father always hated us doing, but it was fun so we did it anyway hoping not to get caught. I was going to the white store, the closer store. I never minded doing bike errands for my mother, but I was annoyed that day. It seemed to me my mother was taking the day far too lightly. I couldn’t believe that she would actually send me to do an errand on Christmas Eve. I thought it odd she didn’t realize Christmas Eve is one of the sacred days for kids, not a day for errands. It was a day for dreaming and for hoping to fall asleep as early as possible.
When it got dark, we always got restless. We watched the clock and waited. My mother let us open one gift on Christmas Eve, and that one gift was always new pajamas. Every year we argued that we should pick the gift, but it was inevitable that we’d get stuck with the new pajamas.
Back then Santa Claus was on TV every day in the late afternoon starting a few weeks before Christmas from a station out of New Hampshire. He was in his workshop and had one elf. Every Christmas Eve, the last show, we’d watch as he filled up his sleigh and we’d listen to his reminder about being fast asleep before his arrival.
Bedtime was never more welcome than it was every Christmas Eve.
“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
December 13, 2011The morning was lovely. I had to be up and about early, early for me, not the rest of the world, and be in Hyannis by nine. When I went outside to leave, my windshield was covered in frost. The air was wonderfully crisp the way a winter morning should be. It wasn’t cold, but there was a chill in the air left over from the nighttime. The sun was just gearing up to warm the day. It’s already 45°.
After my appointment, I did a bit of last-minute shopping. I needed a few small gifts for Colorado as I’m sending their packages tomorrow. Tonight I’ll wrap what I bought then off the boxes will go wending their way westward. I stopped at a couple of more places before I came home, but I saved one for later so Gracie can come for the ride.
I always send Christmas cards. For me, they are a way of staying in touch and of telling people you’re thinking of them during this wonderful season. I buy special cards for my dearest friends and for my sisters. The other cards I send are also special but in their own way as they are cards illustrated by Edward Gorey. They are amazing drawings far different from the usual cards filled with snowmen, holly or trees. The Gorey cards always make me smile, and I think of them as my Christmas trademark.
My mother had a green metal file box with snowflakes all over it. Inside were index cards alphabetically tabbed and other individual cards were filed by name. On each card my mother kept track of the two columns below the name: one was labeled sent and the other received. In those days we got so many cards the mailman came twice, once in the morning and later in the afternoon. We’d take turns opening the cards, and once in a while a card would come for each of us. We were thrilled. My mother would sometimes put those cards in the middle of the tree. They served as decorations and also hid some of the bare spots. The rest of the cards were taped around the inside doorways and around the picture window.
Some of my friends still send cards but it is a dying tradition. I’m saddened by that. I love going to the mailbox and finding the red or green envelopes and knowing I have some cards to open. I still have a couple from when I was a kid. Those go in the middle of the tree even if there isn’t a bare spot.
“For the spirit of Christmas fulfills the greatest hunger of mankind.”
December 12, 2011A flicker is dining at my suet feeder. Compared to the birds I usually see, it is enormous as his body is the same length as the wire feeder. His back is to me so I can see the beautiful pattern of his feathers. I also see that a few of the smaller feeders need seeds so I’ll go out later and fill them. The gold finches and the chickadees especially love those smaller feeders. I haven’t seen many of the spawns of Satan of late. Perhaps they feel the vibes.
At 45° the day is winter warm. Gracie was out for a long while earlier this morning, a sure sign she finds the day agreeable. It’s now her morning nap time.
The den is a mess filled as it is with bags of gifts to be wrapped, tissue paper, assorted wrapping paper rolls and boxes with ribbons and tags. Only a few gifts are left upstairs to be brought down, but all the up and down the stairs yesterday took its toll so I left the larger, heavier boxes until today. I wrapped a few gifts last night, but today I’ll finish the bulk of them. I enjoy wrapping presents and making the ribbon just so, but for my sisters, I can’t add ribbon to the gifts as their cats are notorious ribbon eaters. Mine usually aren’t but this year Fern has given a few gifts a taste.
The houses are beautiful all lit up for Christmas. Many use colored lights on the fences and bushes but just as many use white ones. The candles in the windows are mostly white though I did see some red ones the other night. When I was a kid, orange was the color of choice for window lights. No houses had white lights anywhere. The outside lights were all colors and the strands had those huge bulbs you don’t see anymore. I have a couple of sets from long ago, but I don’t use them. I guess I keep them more for sentiment than anything else. They were beautiful and they were bright.
At dinner last week my sister noted that people really are nicer at Christmas. They tend to smile more for no apparent reasons. They are less impatient. They will even stop to admire a tree or a decoration. I agree with her and have a theory as to the reason. I believe all of us have pieces of our childhoods kept alive especially for this time of year when we welcome wonder and magic and let Christmas into our hearts.
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