Best memories of Christmas

Time for reminiscing and to think of Christmas past! I have alot of sad memories of Christmases past but I want to focus on happy times!

I remember as a child we used to take it in turns on Boxing Day to host a party at our house or my Uncle's or Auntie's houses. We used to play games such as charades. My Dad was useless at charades and could never keep quiet! One year his trying to act out Jingle Bells caused everyone to laugh so much they all had to go home afterwards exhausted!

We always used to go to my Dad's Aunt Alice's house for a Christmas party. She always used to play Max Bygraves records on the record player really loudly and when my sister and cousin changed them to play their records she would turn the volume right down!

We had a big Christmas tree growing in our garden at Haden Hill and as my Dad was disabled our neighbour used to come over and put lights on the tree for us and you could see them from Halesowen! I really hope that next year I will be back at Haden Hill and can put lights on my own Christmas tree growing in that garden.

The things that stick in my mind Stephanie are the shiny new pennies, the blenheim apple, the orange, the sweets that my parents put in a pillow case on the bottom of my bed. I would wake up Christmas morning thinking it was Christmas!! Lol

Amazing to think that we had so little, yet made so much of it. This of course was soon after the War had ended and people didn't have much money, a bit like today except that we didn't know about greedy bankers, and/or the expenses racket! Shall I go on, perhaps not....wrong thread!!

The bottom line is that I have great memories as a child with my parents and all that they gave us, despite it being nothing in comparison with today. 

One Christmas we had a really (REALLY) cheap plastic Father Christmas (Santa) chimes, that were hung up in our hallway by the telephone. After Christmas and all the decorations were taken down, the Father Christmas chimes stayed where they were. Practically every time I passed them I would stretch up and tap them.

I even did it when I arrived home late at night, and one day my mum told me that she would stay awake and listen for those chimes, then she could go to sleep.

Mum would always make Christmas puddings, and we had to stir them counter clockwise three times and make a wish. 

So, a bit of Christmas memories in there. 

My fondest memories are of baking cookies with my mom and making up trays of them for the neighbors. I received all the joy when I got to deliver them.

Christmas morning was so magical for me. My dad would put the tree in a stand and put the lights on it Christmas Eve. No other decorations were on it. And nothing under it! On Christmas morning us kids would always wake up early and very noisily run downstairs and peek around the corner into our Living Room. We would find the tree lit up, all decorated with tinsel, ornaments and pretty packages all placed neatly under it. Santa's cookies and milk were always gone. And sometimes we would see boot prints on the floor!! 

I think we had an nice Christmas the year my oldest grandson was due to be born.. within an month....there wasn't an LOT she could do that year as big as she was, so I got us an mobile home type "cabin" up at Mt. Hood RV Resort with an large deck and an Hot tub...."the works" as there wasn't much we could even get her that year...esp in clothes, esp in thngs to eat, things she could do. It turned out very nice, the people that owned this and rented it out had built an extra room on it with huge surround windows and an fireplace, and put just all kinds of games and small  100 piece puzzles to build and we spent half the night up playing games... Listening to Christmas music, eating the warm homemade bread we were greeted with, and the bottle of complimentary wine...taking turns hot tubbing in privacy..not the daughter in-law though....my brother pulled in the next day for an couple of days, he ended up going to Mt. Hood to the ski lodge for the frireworks New year's Eve and the party/celebrations at the main lodge in the Rv center. Grandson was born about 24 days later, safe an sound and healthy. It was kind of quiet, but the "mountain scenery" and  overlooking an river out those windows gave us all an inner sort of much needed "peace" that year.

We had one of those silver trees with the color wheel that spun around making the tree shine in all different colors.  I always wanted a normal tree, but my parents' excuse was the trains. They said we couldn't have a real tree because the needles would fall and mess up the trains.  We never put up our tree until Christmas Eve, but it was great fun setting up the little village and train set on a platform under the tree.  Our village looked like a little English village, it was very cool. 

We were always up super early, but I didn't like to tear into my presents because they all looked so pretty.  Our Italian next door neighbor would come over on Christmas morning with a big tray of homemade Italian Christmas cookies.

Snow was always a bonus.  One Christmas Eve, it rained all day, but just before dark, it changed to snow and then snowed all night.  Because of the rain, the snow stuck to everything.  Every telephone wire, every twig on every tree branch, absolutely everything was white.  It was amazing.

When we got a little older, we'd go to midnight Mass then come home and have pierogies, croissants and our annual drink our parents allowed us to have - lime vodka in 7-Up.

One of my favorite Christmas seasons was when my wife, my daughter and I stayed in 17th-century Ivy Cottage in Church Lane, Ledbury (Herefordshire) in December 2003-January 2004. Below is my photo of Ivy Cottage on the right side of the lane (note the snow on the living potted plants opposite the cottage!).

Picture by Rob Faleer

We walked up to the lane to the vast 13th/14th-century parish church of St. Michael and All Angels to attend one of the most beautiful carol services I have ever been to--you can just see the spire in the photo.

I kept expecting to run into characters from the novels of Fielding or Austen or Dickens each time we walked in Church Lane--it was very atmospheric and easy to lose oneself in an earlier era. Of course, being six steps from the pub across the lane was a nice added bonus! I'll never forget our time there!