New Years Eve

Mom and Dad had New Year's Eve parties.  They were not really parties, they involved the family and were a bit different.  When we were children we would try to stay up late so we could go outside and make noise at midnight. This was a tradition that Mom and Dad had.  We did not always make it until then since we were so young.  This was a night to play games and watch television.  We had all sorts of snacks during the evening, complete with some left over Christmas goodies! When we did make it up until midnight, it seemed that great things happened!  It was such fun to go outside and make noise.  Mom gave us pots and pans and wooden spoons and we would get to bang on them as hard as we could. Clang! Clang! Clang!  I always liked the angel food cake pan.  You could put your hand in the middle of the pan and bang away! The older brothers would fire shotguns into the air.  We could hear the other neighbors making noise as well and some had firecrackers.  It seemed such fun to be able to go outside late at night and make noise! I have no idea why they thought of going outside and making noise, but hey, I happily participated. It was fun and it was really neat!  The sounds of talking in the distance, sounds of merriment and noise-making echoing through the woods and the area was something to hear! Some noises were muffled as they were more in the distance and we would try to guess what neighbors were doing what.  This was such excitement for little kids and the grown ups seemed to enjoy it too!!   After the noisemaking, Mom honored the tradition that a man had to be the first person through the door of the house the first day of the year, so we had to wait for Dad or one of the brothers to enter the house first.  If a woman/girl entered first, she would have you walk out backwards so a man could then enter.  Walking out backwards must have "un-done" your entrance. I think some of the times, we would open the door so we could and the old year out and let the new year in.

After the noise making, mom and the older children would come in and call relatives and friends.  All of the phone prefixes started with the same number then so if the year was 1965, they would disguise their voice and call people and say is this 1-9-6-5?  They would for some reason find it funny if the person would say no and they would laugh and say yes it is!  They would shout "Happy New Year!"  They would only talk for a brief moment as they had others to call and do the same thing to and they did not want them to beat them to it!

The bad part of this was the next day. There was some sort of food mom had to serve.  I am shocked that I do no remember this, as I was always upset that she made it, mainly because I did not care for it.  It was either cabbage, or beans and corn bread.  It was something that she said was to be the traditional first meal of the new year.  I do not know which it was.  Her mother was German, so I am thinking it was cabbage. Well, I have talked with a reliable source, my cousin, Scottie, ...and he states that it was corned beef brisket, and cabbage, boiled with potatoes and carrots.  He still eats it every New Year's Eve!  Scottie, I never really cared for it, but I am thankful you were there to remember for me.

When our own children, were younger, we would have snacks and sparkling grape juice to toast with at midnight.  We would play some games and perhaps watch a movie.  We enjoyed watching the yearly countdowns, top music, top news, etc. As the children aged, we would host game nights with plenty of food. We would allow the friends to all stay over (in fact we preferred it) so no one would be out driving with the ones who drive and drink. We would go outside at midnight and make noise, but we never heard anyone else and it felt sort of silly to be doing that.  The kids did not really see the point, so we stopped that. We would serve breakfast for the ones who stayed over. Some times, we would have the same type of thing at church and stay there until midnight or later. The church sort of lost interest in this or the people did, so we had it at our home mostly.  We always liked to provide alternatives for the children. We had such great times on New Year's Eve. 

No game night tonight!  All of the children and their friends are grown and really are not too interested in coming here.  I wonder why?  I even have pots and pans I would let them bang on!

Happy New Year, everyone!  Enjoy and please, please be safe!

Please comment below and share your memories! 

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California Or Bust!

So, since it was only suppose to be a day to get to Florida and back, this should be a two day trip.  I am packed and ready to go!  California should be beautiful.  I have to admit I am sort of excited.  I have only been east and south.

This first day has seemed so long. I am bored out of my mind, the scenery is not as pretty as I was thinking it would be. Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico seemed to take forever to get through. In Texas, we did come upon a place where they had buried a bunch of cadillacs in the ground leaving only half sticking out of the ground.  This was on Route 66 west of Amarillo.  Here is an excerpt from what I found online:

“Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3’s fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.”  You may want to Google the article.  Just search for Cadillac Ranch. 

It seemed I slept a lot through this trip since I was so bored. I do not know how those drivers stay awake for hours on end day after day.   It was about 10:00 p.m. when my “driver” woke me up and told me to sit up I would want to see this.  We were climbing a mountain and he wanted me to be sure to see when we got to the top. OH MY GOODNESS!!  What a beautiful, breathtaking sight!  It was Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was the lights of the town, the stars in the sky, the way the night just felt, the sounds from the truck seemed hushed and it was like time stood still.   I can barely describe it.  It was like a bowl of jello, dark, dark jello with suspended bright lights in it.  It felt like we were hovering above it and were suspended in this bowl of jello.  It no longer felt like we were driving or moving. It was too beautiful to describe and exciting as well as it felt as though we were going to fall all of the way to the bottom. Seeing this was worth the trip! The Grand Canyon was driven through at night, so we missed that.  That actually made me sort of angry, well not angry, maybe sad.   My driver/tour guide sad we would have actually had to drive over to it anyway, but what a missed opportunity! There is beauty to be seen in everything, I realize and appreciate that but  I just had expectations.

Then came California which was not what  I imagined at all.   It is sort of sad to have waited your entire life to see something and then it is a let down. We dropped the trailer that we had in Long Beach, California at a seaport and were headed back out of there for Salt Lake City, Utah.  My driver/tour guide said, “Hey!  There is a sign that says Marriages, No Blood Test Required!  Want to get married?”  I looked at him confused and he explained that we could get married without a blood test, did I want to.  I looked at him a few minutes, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure.” Hey, I have known him now for three weeks, so what the heck!   Now I am sort of excited, sort of worried.  Okay, a lot worried.  Should I marry a guy I have known for only three weeks?  I saw his parents one time and we know how that went.  His boys did like me.  I never met his daughter.  I guess considering the facts, naturally yes is the answer!  I told him I would buy him a steak for a nice pre-wedding breakfast.  We are both happy now but that does not last long. The restaurant we stopped at was not the best choice.  I realize that the breakfast steaks are not always top quality, but I am not so sure that it was even a steak that we had.  Was it even a type of meat? We started teasing about what it might have been and then there was no way we could even take another bite.  Just the smell of it should have stopped us. It was the most terrible place ever!  I can honestly say that I have not had anything that bad to eat and it still holds the title for the worst thing we ever ate, rather, tried to eat. We left the restaurant, still feeling hungry, but with a complete loss of appetite.  We head on over to this place ….

As we are nearing our destination, we stop to  freshen up for the wedding.  Have I mentioned that I do not like truck stop showers either?  There is something about  going in right after a stranger that bothers me. They are pre-heated and pre-steamed up from the prior person which is unpleasant. It just feels sort of yucky. I was afraid the doors would not remain locked.  I made my now fiance. stay outside of the door and stand guard.  I even had to have a pair of flip flops so I would not stand on the floor after others.  As I thought this was a short trip,  I did not have many clothes with me.  Okay, I will admit it, I had nothing to wear!  I packed enough for two days so this means that I left in what I had on and brought one change of clothing with me.  I do not know what I was thinking.  I guess I thought this guy was the best truck driver ever and that  he could just endlessly drive and get there and come straight back.  I have no concept of time or miles.  He was having such fun laughing over this situation, wondering who would ever think it was that short of a trip!  He said that even if he drove the entire time we would have not made it back in two days.  We had stopped in New Mexico when we were there  and he bought me a rather pretty top so I could just wear that.  I had a pair of clean jeans and I had bought a package of underwear.  Well, I must have picked up the wrong package because three of me could have fit in them.  Now what?  I put the underwear on and that made my jeans appear to have a baggy diaper or a big wadded up piece of material in them.   I was in no way going to wear these! He had a new package of underwear for himself and his was closer to my size than mine. Nice, I am going to be married wearing  men’s underwear.  Is this what they mean by wearing the pants in the family??  If so, I was going to be starting the marriage out right! They were fruit of the loom briefs.   Go me! I am such a class act. I have come to realize two things about this truck — things do not seem to go right…. EVER!  and that once you get in that truck, you seem to never get out!!!

All cleaned up and ready to go! We were so excited, we were singing, laughing, joking and trucking right along.   Suddenly  red lights are flashing behind us.  I am sure they are not an escort to the wedding, but hey, it could happen.  We pull over and the officer was not very kind from the beginning.   We had no trailer on and the truck had  a jiff-lock.  This means that you could raise the back axle and you then have the same number of axles as a car.  The speed limit for cars now applies to you. The officer informed us that we were speeding.  My fiance told the officer we were not, we had the jiff lock up and he started to explain it, but this officer did not really care about any of this.  He  basically handed over the the ticket and said tell it to the judge.  As we start back up, the CB radio goes wild.  They are all saying things to him like we tried to get you and let you know, you would not respond to us at all, what were you thinking.  For some reason, this was making us laugh.  I guess there was not much else to do but laugh. He explained to the other truckers that he was just excited as he was going to be getting married and that we had the CB radio off,  the music radio on and we were singing and goofing around.  They were so nice!   Well wishes and congratulations started flowing along with condolences on our ticket.  It was fun talking with all of them.  It actually is rather fun to ride along with a truck driver.  The things you experience are endless. These people have a camaraderie.  Sure there are some bad as there are in any given group, but most are so good.  They sacrifice so much to earn a living and are stereotyped incorrectly.  They are people like everyone else and are under appreciated.  What a lonely, yet dangerous job this can be. There are so many wrecks out there and they are at such a risk, yet they look after everyone.

Realization — This is going to be an expensive wedding after all and maybe not so quick and easy.  Maybe it won’t even happen.  Who knows what else can go wrong?  Our spirits are a little dampened now but we head on over to this place … The Out Post Wedding Chapel, Victorville, California.  Interstate 15 and Hwy 395. …….


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Truck Driving Adventure

One Saturday, I was sitting at the Moose Club with my two cousins enjoying the afternoon.  In walked two giant guys, at least to me.  I am not really a short person, but while I am sitting in a chair, they looked extra large to me,  one was 6'3 and the other 6'7.  The one nearest to me, the shorter of the two, was talking with my cousins.  I could not see the tallest one as he was behind me and there was no way I was going to make any sudden moves. The one I could see had shoulder length or longer hair, some sort of leather cap on that looked like an Elmer Fudd hat (I guess that is some sort of a motorcycle cap), his goggles were off of his eyes and propped on the cap, he had on a leather fringe jacket, leather chaps and boots. What a site he was and I don't mean this complimentary.  I was very uncomfortable with their size and could not wait for them to leave. When they did leave, my cousins say to me that he is the guy they are wanting to set me up with.  I was shocked!  I asked them if they hated me or something or if I had done something to make them mad!!! They went on and on about how nice he was.  Yuck!  I wanted no part of any of this. Thanks, but no thanks! They were truck drivers and Harley riders, not my type at all, haha! (As if I actually had a type, I really do not know if I do or not.)

The following Saturday night my mother, sister and her spouse and I went to the Moose to have a steak dinner with my cousins and their families.  We are enjoying our meal and in walks the guy and this time the only leather he is wearing is his coat, no hat, goggles or chaps.  I can't even believe he comes and funny the only available chair for him is across from me.  Grrrr!  (My cousins later tell me that he asked of me and they told him I was coming this night. They seemed to be quite proud of this and had on these really smug, proud grins.  My sister, always the friendly, fun, kind person, chats away with him and keeps trying to include me in the conversation. He tried to buy my meal which I would not allow! I was not going to be indebted to this guy for anything.  After the meal, the band began playing and this guy wanted to dance with me.  My sister and everyone kept "pressuring me to dance".  I love to dance, but really did not want this guy to even begin to think that I liked him, but I did dance with him a couple of times so that I could dance at other times as well.  I would feel terrible telling him I did not want to dance and then dance with others. To my dismay when the dance was over my sister invited him to her house for steak and eggs with the rest of us.The guy was being funny and fit right in and the entire family loved him.  My mother was absolutely nuts about him!

One day he showed up to where I was working with my cousin and brought us a soda.  This guy!  Seems that my cousins kept filling him in on my whereabouts. He showed up one morning at the restaurant we were eating breakfast at before work and even treated us to breakfast.  You cannot say this guy does not try and is not nice. He had to go on a run to Texas and when he got back in town  he drove out in his semi and brought me a very expensive, nice, gold necklace.  I tried to not accept it, but he would not take it back. He then started telephoning me and not really being a mean person, I would talk to him.  He did make me laugh although he was somewhat annoying at times. He had these two little sons, such cuties, who were here for his visitation period over the summer.  He wanted me to go see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with them at the theater.  Ummmm, NO!  Give it up buddy.  I was not really interested in going to that sort of movie anyway.  Why would someone without children go see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, (Heroes in a half shell, turtle power.  Funny, I do know the show obviously.)

During our talks I had mentioned that I had never been in a semi and thought it would be fun to ride in one.  Boy he wasted no time jumping on that!  He asked me to go on a trip to Florida with him.  I guess that could be tolerable and maybe entertaining.  I asked my cousin's husbands if I would be safe traveling with him and if he would not hurt me.  They assured me he was nice and I would be okay and that he had better not ever hurt me.  (I am not sure they could have taken this huge guy, but I accepted their reasoning and felt comforted.)  Well, I have now known this guy, that I do not like, for two weeks and was on my way to Florida with him.  He was friendly and fun to talk with so, what the heck, it beats setting at home.  Florida was everything bad that you could imagine. There were ugly lizard things walking up the windows right outside the table we were eating at. What an appetizing site (sarcasm) and a rather ugly thing to eat with. You could see those ugly little suction cups that they were stuck to the window with and everything. 

We were in Wildwood, Florida, and we pulled in to a truck stop for me to go to the bathroom, inside I found a small bird on his back struggling to turn over right beside the stool.  I ran out and got my friend and said I could not go in there with that bird!  He came in there and checked and told me it was a bug!  OMG!!! A bug as big as a small bird!!! He said it was a Palmetto bug. I have no idea what it was called and do not really care.  All I cared about was that it was on it's back and I was not going to sit on a toilet and have him right himself and fly around while I had my pants down! I am positive that I do not care for Florida and I want to go home!  Needless to say, the guy did not get rid of the bug and we drove elsewhere to use the bathroom. There was one fun thing, though, I got to sit at the tables where the truckers do and use those phones that were at their tables!  I got to call my mom and my sister and chat with them while at a restaurant. I called my niece, anyone I could think of because this was so neat!  How cool and I felt so important calling from a dinner table! This thrill is gone and a thing of the past now that there are cell phones. There were even little individual jukeboxes at the table and we could play our own music. 

Going home is not going to happen!  The truck broke down next.  All I can remember is that we were in some parking lot for hours.  It was too hot to sit in the truck so we had to sit on the dolly.  A dolly is the part where the fifth wheel is that you hook the trailer too. This spot is only available for sitting when there is no trailer on.   It was not comfortable at all and it was oily and dirty and it was very hot out.  It was  finally repaired and we were on our way. This was to be a short trip, we were only going to be gone one night and back home the next day.  His boys were up from Florida visiting Illinois, remember?  He was just taking short trips so he could be with his sons.  Well, by the time we got the truck running, it was time to head back to Illinois.  Sadly, the boys were on their way to Indiana to fly out to Florida.  So we high tailed it to Indiana instead so that he could see his boys off.  Keep in mind that I am a bit uncomfortable as the boys nor their grandparents (this guy's parents) know that I am with him.  We meet them in a truck stop to have lunch.  When we are about to get out of the truck, he says they are going to have a fit when they see you crawl out of this truck.  Great!  Now I feel wonderful.  I will never forget the look on his parent's faces when I stepped out of that truck and it only gets worse. The flight was not until the next day so they were spending the night in Indiana.  The parents were besides themselves with what to do.  There was, of course, nothing I could say or do.  They are not my parents or my children and I was not even suppose to be around. We went to eat and afterwards the boys got to swim in the hotel pool.  They were such a joy!  I got some pennies out and had them dive for them.  We had such a great time.  They were showing me all of the tricks they could do. I immediately fell in love with those little boys.  We talked, laughed and played.  I could see the parents discussing the situation with my friend and I could tell they were not happy.  I could catch some of the looks on their faces. They decided they would get adjoining rooms and they and the guy were in one room while I was in a room with the boys. This was a hard decision for them.  They did not want the guy and me in a room together.  They did not know me and thought it would be uncomfortable with me in their room, for all of us! I only know the guy, so this was very uncomfortable for me sleeping with a group of people I do not know at all.  I assume it would have been inappropriate for me to go back in that sleeper on that truck with the boys there, but I am sure that I would have liked that better.  Why should things improve at this point, we find that  the air conditioner in our rooms does not work.  The boys were complaining of being hot and it was miserable. I wanted to complain!  There is nothing worse than being hot. There seemed to be no air movement at all.  (Here I am thinking of that sleeper on the truck again, the air conditioning works good in it.) I kept telling them to just lay still and it would get better, although I knew it would not.  I kept trying to comfort them and then we would talk and talking turned in to giggling.  Then Grandma starts telling us to be quiet.  I am an adult and am being told to be quiet at bedtime, being chastised by someone I just met and yet being treated like her child.  I don't know if that should make me feel better or not.  Anyway, all of this made us giggle more and more.  I advised the boys to hide their giggles in the pillows and tried everything to get them to sleep.  It was fun laughing and trying to hide it and it reminded me of being a child and yet was so uncomfortable at the same time. That was a great time with the boys and a good memory, but I just needed to get home. 

I have failed to mention one thing here.  After everything that could go wrong on this supposed fun, first time trip in a semi went wrong, somehow I ended up falling in love with this guy.  We had discussed this in Wildwood, Florida, before we left there. I was so upset about falling in love with him that I cried.  Can you believe that?   He also cried because he was so happy about it.  Well, that did not take long did it?  From dislike to love in two weeks?!  Sounds like a Harlequin romance book or a Hallmark movie.   I was crying and told him there was no way I could love him already. He said being in a truck and having everything that went wrong go wrong, was like being married for ten years.  He said it was not like we were dating and seeing each other in good situations, we had been stuck together every minute with nothing going right and we still enjoyed being together.

So, my point  here is that I think  I am in love with a guy that I am sure his parents do not  think well of. They think  I am some sort of questionable lady, riding around in a truck with a guy I hardly know. He has two little boys who know nothing about me either.  What a way to meet his family!  I tried to be as friendly as I could to the parents but it was just too awkward.  I did become "besties" with the boys. That was easy since the guy and his parents spent the time discussing what to do about me and I had nothing else to do but play with the boys.  They were fun and very sweet, though. It was time for them to board their plane finally and we could get me back home.  When we got to my home my mom and sister and family were in the yard excited to see how the trip went since they all love this guy so.  I got out of the truck and the first words out of my mother's mouth were that I had no make up on and looked beautiful. She cracks me up!  My sister's first words were that it was "because she is in love."  I quickly stated that I was not. Although I had admitted it to him,  I somehow still wanted to deny this fact, especially after the night I had. I really did not want this to happen for some reason, probably because he is not what I considered to be my type, I did not get off to a good start with his parents and he had these children. 

However, not to be discouraged, this guy calls me the next day and says he has a run to California. I guess I must have mentioned that I had never been to California and I always wanted to and he felt like he needed to take me there.  He insisted I go because he only picked up this run for me.  Oh boy!  I am getting in deeper and deeper here and this is not something I want at all!  Well, here we go..... wait until you hear how much goes wrong on this trip to California and what all happens!  See you here on Sunday!

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THE REASON - -

This is probably the first verse that everyone memorizes, the one everyone knows.  Our dear friend, Dorothy, and I were talking about this one day.  She told me that someone once told her that everyone knew that verse but they really should know John 3:17 as well.  She asked if I knew it which I did not.  She said when she was told that she thought she should memorize it too.  She immediately quoted it to me. She said he was right, it was important!

John 3:17

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Like most of the time, Dorothy was right!  Dorothy was a very dear, dear friend and we have some stories to tell about her, too.  They will be coming soon. Merry Christmas to you all.  Have a wonderful day!

Christmas Future

Again, incorrect title here.  This is not actually Christmas future, it is both Christmas now and Christmas future. I just wanted three blogs to be named Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future so I improvised a bit.  I thought those titles would sound good and perhaps attract readers.  HaHa.  By the way, my favorite version of "A Christmas Carol" is the one starring Alistair Sims.

The children are grown and have their own plans and families in addition to their partner's family.  I never liked having to haul our children to various places during the holidays when they just wanted to stay home and play and enjoy their day. So, I want them to enjoy their Christmas even if that is at their own home.  We can have the "Santa celebration" at any time. This year we will be together Christmas Eve, though!

Of course Christmas is not the same as when I was a child and never will be, mainly because I am no longer a child! That seemed sad to me and I would look back and miss those days.  Now I remember those days with a smile and am ever so thankful for them.  We had our babies and it became about making memories for them.  That was even more fulfilling!  How fun it was to make those babies days wonderful!  Now,  I miss those days!  Since it has not been that long ago, although I smile and am happy for those memories, I still miss them and tear up from time to time.  Okay, maybe I outright sob.  Our children have already noticed the difference in Christmas too as a lot of our family has passed away and/or moved away and our holiday gatherings are much smaller.

I may have trouble explaining this due to lack of words coming to me,  but there are certain feelings a person gets about things.  For instance, a smell or a song may remind you of a person, place or event. To me, Christmas is a feeling.  I have moments, that I just "feel" that it is Christmas and it feels wonderful!  It is like when you step outside and the air is just right and the smells, the way the sky looks and the weather, and you think, this reminds me of camping.  That is just what I am talking about. As the Christmas season is near, just walking through the house, or stepping outside, the feeling that it is about to be Christmas and is Christmas season just comes over me.  Does anyone know what I mean?  Did I explain it well enough? Anyway, I absolutely love that "feeling" of Christmas.  Perhaps it is the anticipation, the memories, the way people act, the air, who knows. I won't question it, I will just enjoy it!

Another difference now is the difficulty in shopping for the children.  The days of the easy, fun toys are over. My children still love the toys, but mostly the video games  Well, they do still love any type of Lego and my daughter would take a stuffed animal or doll anytime.  I know she wanted the Pioneer Woman dollhouse that was complete with little kitchen accessories and of course a doll of Ree!  It is not available here and not for shipping or I would have made sure that Santa brought that to her! She collects all of the other Pioneer woman stuff.  Clothing is too complicated to shop for as they are so particular and make their own choices now.  Mommy does not get to dress them how she thinks is cute.  HaHa.  Gift certificates are not much fun, so it becomes quite the challenge.  You have to listen to little comments all year about how they may want this or that and remember to get that for them.  I don't seem to do to well with this, but my son and daughter are the best at it.  They are so observant!  That must not have come from me, unless I was better when I was younger.

Please do not take any of this the wrong way, even with the changes in our lives, we still LOVE the Santa celebration part of Christmas.  The family gets together and we still make all of the favorite foods.  My brother and his family will probably eat lunch with us one of the days.  We will have lasagna one day and steak and scalloped potatoes the other.  (Side note:  Wikipedia says: Lasagne is the noodle and Lasagna is the dish) My husband will make his famous pancakes for breakfast I am certain.  I use to make something special every year and would look for a new recipe but my husband excels at pancakes and I don't have to work so why not?!  Well, he is learning to excel at gluten free pancakes now.  My sister-in-law and her children always make it to Christmas Eve still.  This year they will be bringing a new member, my great nephew! We play games and eat with them and my sister-in-law will be bringing some of her special treats!

We always, always watch the Christmas Carol with Alistair Sims after everyone leaves. We try to do that on Christmas Eve to keep that tradition.  That brings to mind a Christmas Past.  I believe it was the last Christmas that my sister was at our house before she passed away. She and I (as the rest of the siblings) watched that movie with Mom and Dad.  It was probably hard for mom what with all she had to do for Santa because that show was on television at 10:30 every Christmas Eve.  We did  not have all of the channel choices and movie stations that we do today.  It was on Channel 3 at that time and that is when you watched it. Remember the boxes you had to have  to turn the antenna the direction of one of the limited channels you could get? When that broke, until you got a new one, you may have had to go manually turn it!  Haha.  Anyway, with the 10:30 time, that meant us children were up late and perhaps mom had to stay up even later since she did have to help Santa.

So, my sister and her family were visiting and we were all downstairs ready to watch the movie and my son ran upstairs to cook  frozen pizzas for us.  Our favorite brand is a Tombstone pizza.  My son takes such pride in how he "doctors" it up.  He uses his special blend of spices and extra cheese.  He hurried and set the timer and was back in no time.  We started the movie.  This year, there was some sort of problem with the DVD player but we finally got it to work.  It seemed we were having issues with everything that night.  Haha. The timer buzzed indicating it was pizza time.  The plates, napkins and drinks were already downstairs.  My son dashed up the steps to get and cut the pizzas.  He was back in record time.  In fact, such record time, we knew he could not have the pizzas with him.  What had he forgotten?  Perhaps it needed a little more oven time.  Well..... you should have seen his sad little  face.  My son, in his hurry, had cooked the pizzas the entire time on Broil!  Yep, totally black pizzas.  Not at all edible!  We were so disappointed but none more than him.  Pizza is his very favorite food!  I remember when he was actually proud because he had secretly had a goal to eat an entire frozen pizza.  I remember him bragging the day that he accomplished this, he was in third grade!  I had no idea he had set this goal and it does not seem to be a problem for him now.  Haha.  As you may have gathered from reading my stories, nothing much bothers my husband.  He was glad to have that pizza no matter what.  It never occurred to any of us to even attempt to eat it as it was truly burned beyond recognition.  He ate it anyway, though or should I say he crunched through it.  Unfortunately, we did not have any more pizzas for him to cook but I am pretty sure we found something else to snack on and we enjoyed the movie as always!

I believe in the Thanksgiving blog that I mentioned the holiday gatherings being smaller due to people passing and other reasons, but it will grow again.  It is a way of life.  The children will have children and new members will be added.  There are always wonderful new memories to make and we should strive to do just that. I realize it is hard and there is sorrow at holidays too, too may losses at times.  Loneliness.  Remember to keep making memories and sharing joy and happiness with the ones who are still here.  Try to reflect on your memories with smiles and be happy that we were able to have them.  Perhaps this will help get through it.  Embrace your loved ones that are still with you. We have lost both sets of our parents, my three older siblings and others.  The sadness can wash over you at moments. Sometimes you may need to just cry and that is okay. I wish I could be there to give you a hug. Sometimes it may help to share a nice memory of a person that you can smile about or laugh about.  I hope that I have encouraged you or made you smile with some of our memories.  Try to smile over yours and make new ones to smile and laugh over and may you all have a wonderful Christmas.

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Christmas Present - As In Christmas Now - Not The Gift.

Christmas present is not actually Christmas present.  It is about the Christmases we had with our children, when they were little.  They have since grown and moved away. Yuck!! I hate the sound of that!  I miss them being here so much!  I am proud and happy  that they are doing fine on their own, but I long for those little arms around our necks and those little legs running down the hallways in excitement, giggling and laughing.  I miss everything about them.

I wanted our children to have the wonderful memories that I had so I tried to make Christmas close to my parents' style.  We use to keep up my mother's tradition of decorating on Thanksgiving night, but had to change that.  After my mother passed away, Thanksgivings were only at my husband's family - the 45 minute drive one way. The children were so excited to get back and decorate that they were ready to leave Thanksgiving at Grandma's right after eating. We, of course, stayed anyway and visited and played games and things. We were so tired when we got home but never wanted to disappoint the children, so we decorated anyway. We never finished it that night, but we got a healthy start or at least got the tree up.  Our tree was artificial but I always teasingly told the children that we had to wait to decorate until the branches warmed up and dropped, just like my mom told us.  They would just laugh. Christmas was the time to remove every decoration, every anything that you had in your home and replace it with only Christmas!  Shower curtains, hand towels, soap dispensers, napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers, items on the walls, rugs, anything in the home had to be Christmas.  At times, we were not even finished decorating when Christmas arrived. Going overboard?  Yes, maybe, but the only way to be! Solution:  We start decorating November 1 so that we are finished by Christmas and we now can stay later in the evening at Grandma's as the children were no longer so anxious to leave. We had a Christmas tree downstairs and upstairs.  The children had small trees in their rooms. One can never have enough trees, can they?  Keeping with mom's tradition, we strung popcorn and made paper chains, too. We would make/craft some type of ornament each year.  This was a fun family project and the children would make extras to give out as gifts.  We still have at least one of every single one of these ornaments.

Black Friday was never about shopping with us.  I am not sure shopping was a big day then and I am not sure it was always called that. Was it? It was about continuing decorating and starting on the candy making.  It seemed we made candy and/or cookies daily!  We filled every container available and stocked up the freezer. We each had our favorites. We set out a  little candy daily until Christmas and then set it all out on Christmas Eve and Christmas day just like mom did. Christmas Eve was spent with my side of the family coming to our house and we had an evening of snack type foods, meatballs, cheese dips, barbecued cocktail weiners, cheese garlic bread, bacon wrapped chestnuts, devilled ham dip and more.  I have included the recipe for bacon wrapped chestnuts. Of course, all of the candy was set around, including some store bought favorites. We exchanged gifts and then a Christmas paper ball fight broke out.  People were wadding up the used wrapping paper and throwing wadded balls at each other like crazy. This was always a high speed fight. The paper ball fight eventually  prompted the tradition of buying "toys for the boys." This never stopped the paper fights though, that is a yearly occurrence! Someone would buy a "toy" for every guy that would be coming.  I believe they were usually some type of shooting toy, nerf or whatever. One year, though,  it was blow dart guns.  They all had to go outside and play with those. Funny thing was, that year it was almost 70 degrees out on Christmas.  Illinois weather is the best!

I think that the most memorable was when my nephew and his wife stole away to the downstairs where they had marshmallow shooting guns hidden.  They loaded all of the guns and came bounding up the stairs firing away at all of us, handing each of us a gun as they passed by us. A complete war broke out.  Such a fun thing to watch.  Guys were hiding like swat team members, darting around corners, hiding against walls and shooting at each other. The cat even got involved in this one!  I will have to explain this.  We had been running down hallways, up and down the stairs, and from room to room. We were in complete combat!  We finally had to rest and were sitting and talking and reliving the "war".  Suddenly a marshmallow comes sailing into the room from the hallway.  I am sure this is hard to believe, but it was seen with our own eyes!  The cat picked up a marshmallow in the hallway and tossed it into the room!  We laughed so hard that it took awhile for us to recover from that one. I was finding those miniature marshmallows for years in various different out of reach places.  I found one this very year when we had to move a cabinet.  What a great thing to find!  I smiled most of the day with that memory. I took a picture of that marshmallow with my phone and shared it with my daughter!  Haha. After everyone left, the children were allowed to open one gift from us before bedtime.

Christmas morning  -  what fun for the children.  They could barely sleep.  Our youngest, a daughter, would seem to wake up every hour and run to our room and tell us she was certain Santa was here, could we please get up.  She would say I saw him!  I know he came! I see presents that were not there before! She was so excited! You should have seen that sweet little girl.  She was the picture of Christmas.  She was such a beautiful sight to see with her long blonde hair, her beautiful big brown eyes sparkling with excitement and dressed in a red plaid flannel night gown with white lace. Sometimes we went ahead and let them open gifts as early as 4:00 a.m. What a pleasure to see them so excited, their eyes sparkling and all smiles.  I will never forget those days.  I would relive them all over day after day if it were possible.  I could really elaborate here and tell thousands of stories about them during this season, but I would never be able to stop.  I have the rest of the year as the memories pop up to tell you about them. I don't have the words to sum up how full my heart is, how much love I have for those children and how I wish time could stand still and I could have these moments forever!

Presents opened and played with for a bit and then off to Grandma's for dinner.  Again, the children, as much as they loved Grandma and Grandpa and all of the other relatives, could not wait to eat and leave.  They now wanted to get home to play with all of the great items they received.  This barely touches on the joy and great times we had at Christmas with our precious children, but you can imagine.  As I said, I have the rest of the year to tell more as well.  I can say this to all of you, treasure your moments with your family and children.  They really do fly by and are gone before you know it. Do not get caught up in the hectic times.  Slow down and make those memories that will last your lifetime.  Put that sparkle in some child's eye, you will never forget it!

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Mistaken Identity Mishaps

My husband and I pull into the grocery store parking lot and I see my cousin, we will call her Lucy, and my aunt, we will call her Alice, in a car.  Excitedly, I hop out of the car, tell my husband to hurry, and I run to catch them before they leave.  As I am running to their car, I notice Lucy's husband, we will call him Chad, returning the cart to the bay. I immediately change directions and run over to him giggling and laughing and begin telling him how good it is to see him.  I grab his arm, link my arm in his and start walking him to the car. Okay, maybe I was actually sort of dragging him to the car.  He was keeping up, though. I point out that my husband is in our car and we both wave to him while happily skipping along. I  motion for my husband to come on as Chad and I are chatting and chatting on the way.  As unbelievable as it is, it should be noted, that sometimes I fail to let people get a word in.  I tell Chad I will give him a hug later, but let's hurry to the car.  We arrive to the car with Alice and Lucy in it. I start telling Alice and Lucy how thrilled I am to see them, too, and motion for my husband again.  What is taking him so long??!! He is starting to be a bit rude.

I hit them with questions....how long will they be here, when did they get here, will we be getting together and other important questions.  Keeping an eye on my husband, I keep motioning for him to come join, but for some reason he is being all sorts of stubborn! The heck with him, I am excited.  I do not know what his problem is, but  let him stay in the car. I have  noticed that not just him, but everyone is acting sort of weird.  Except for Chad, we are arm in arm and still both smiling and laughing.  Strange that he is more excited to see me than the others because he is not as close to me, being that he is a new in-law.

Finally, Lucy asks who I am with. I am a bit puzzled and thinking she is odd  What an unusual thing to ask. Chad and I look at each other and we both laugh.  Aunt Alice and Lucy just shrug.  Chad and I laugh again.  They are so funny! We start talking about a good game of Rummy being started but Aunt Alice, a little perturbed, interrupts asking who the guy is. Chad and  I shake our heads and laugh.  Why are they continuing this charade? Seeming perturbed herself, again, Lucy asks who.  They are doing a good job playing this whole bewildered act because I am actually believing that they are.

Finallly, a bit annoyed, I  sigh heavily with something like well, duh...it is your husband.  Her eyes widen a bit, she is sort of looking a tad bit shocked and perhaps a little fearful.  I laugh and she widens her eyes more and shakes her head. I look at Aunt Alice with questioning eyes and she frowns. a little worried looking, and shakes her head.  Still clinging to Chad's arm, I look up to him and without missing a beat, he smiles and says, "Does this mean I am not going to get that hug now?"   HaHa! What a way to relieve an awkward situation!  At this moment, I realize Chad is a lot like me! He, too, just plows through an embarrassing moment! I could not have picked a better stranger to haul around with me!  I look over to see where my husband is and he is, of course, still in the car.  He holds his hands up like he is not surprised at all and shakes his head.

Instead of looking for that ever elusive hole to climb into, undaunted, here I go.... still smiling, I am like, "Well, what is your name?"  He says. "Joe."  I introduce him to everyone and question him as to why he came with me and let me drag him all over the parking lot.  He so politely smiled and said  that I never really gave him the chance to say anything. He said that I was so nice to him and seemed so happy to see him that he just could not embarrass me.  He indicated that  he had no idea I would find out otherwise as he figured I would finish talking and he would just be on his way.  He did not think I was going to drag him around to meet my family! What a good sport!  HaHa.  Well, just so you know, I did give Joe his hug!!  I think he was deserving after all of that!  

Now, to confront my husband!  I go back to our car and the first thing he tells me is that from the minute I went to get that guy he knew that I never knew him.  He added that he also knew that I thought I knew him.  Further, he enjoyed watching the whole thing and he knew the guy had no clue as to who I was. He preferred to stay in the car and watch all of this unfold. I was in such disbelief that he knew all of this before I even told him.  Did Mr. Know-It-All stop me?  No!! Why would he not come to me when I motioned for him and save me?  He said he wanted to see how I would get out of this one.  I may return the favor some day!

In retrospect, maybe I was a little confused myself because Joe did not really resemble Chad at all.  He actually looked just like Lucy's brother, Stevie.  I guess I was hungry for family! I have occasionally bumped in to Joe at the store and I still speak to him.  You never know how you will end up making new friends!

Bathroom Blunders

Do NOT sit on that toilet seat!  Line that seat with toilet paper, says your mother.  Like any good child, I obey my mother.   

So, you are out dancing and you are having a great time with all of your family and  friends.   You have to go to the bathroom.  Once there, you hear your favorite song being played.  You just have to dance, so rushing as best that you can, you hurry off the toilet, wash your hands and run to the dance floor.  You made it!  You rush  to dance with your niece.  You and your niece go back to your table and your mother and your husband ask you what you have hanging behind you.  You know instantly what it is!  You wonder why they did not stop you from dancing around with this tail behind you.  How could they do this??  Any of you who have lined the toilet with paper know that sometimes when you stand up, this toilet paper can get pulled up with your jeans leaving this toilet paper tail hanging out of them.  The entire place saw me and my tail dancing around the floor. Ugh!  Do I just want to grab my purse and leave now?  To make matters worse, I have to remove that tail and as I am standing at the table with these decisions to make, EVERYONE at the table is laughing hysterically and making all sorts of jokes and comments.  You know, like I will always have some paper in case the bathroom runs out.  I can always have a tissue for my nose if needed.  Did I feel like a little bunny? They are going on and on. I feel positive that the entire place is watching and my tail is still there. I am totally embarrassed and slightly miffed. I do not always plow through embarrassing moments and carry on, sometimes I actually am ready to crawl into that hole. My sister, who never has felt uncomfortable in any situation, just laughs and reaches over and pulls off my tail.  I may have even been called Eeyore a time or two, but I can guarantee you, I did not go looking for my tail when I lost it!  I guess that is better than when girls wore nylon hose and after a bathroom visit they have tucked their dress into their hose exposing a nylon covered rear end with their underpants glaring brightly for all to see. I have felt so sorry for those girls when I see them.  I have seen this several times and I have also noticed that not one single person tells them as they are walking around like this. I would rather have the tail, so I guess I should not complain. 

Imagine being out to eat with your husband and pastor and his wife.  You go to the bathroom and someone is in there so you have to wait.  The person in there was  so quiet, I was not sure someone was actually there.  I said  something to them and they did not answer.  I bent over to see if there were feet under the stall and there were, so naturally I try striking up a conversation to no avail. I finally left and went to have a seat at the table to  wait my turn.  I tell my friends that someone is in there and I have to wait my turn. I say to them that I don't remember there being only one toilet stall in there and what a short,  little "sink" there is in there!  My husband said he found that odd.  I even remarked about the girl in there having these ugly shoes and how big her feet were. I explain my story to them.  Our food arrives and we begin to eat and I see the person come out of the bathroom.  I am appalled and exclaim  to the table, "That is a guy!  A guy was in our bathroom!!"  They turn around to look and say, "you went to the men's restroom!"  There is an outbreak of laughter while I am about to die from embarrassment.  The guy, appearing to be a young teenager, goes over to his table and does not take his seat.  He is  standing there talking to his group of people. My husband decides to narrate the situation with things such as look, he is telling them how a pedophile came into the bathroom with him, how the parents are wanting to call the police,  does he recognize me anywhere, can he tell by my voice, etc.   The pastor and his wife are laughing more and more.   I cannot believe I did that.  Remember, I even looked under the stall and spoke to this young man.  He must have been so uncomfortable wondering when I would leave and shut up.  I feel so terrible for possibly scaring him.   Also, that little sink.... was not a sink after all.  Will I ever learn?  When we go out to eat now I am told to make sure it says WOmen and not MEN.  By the way, that particular women's bathroom does, in fact, have several stalls and the "sinks" are to regulation height. 

When I was a little girl, 3 or 4, my mother was expecting company and rushing to get ready. My older brother was giving me my bath, helping get us kids ready. Everything went well, but the company arrived earlier than expected and my brother rushed out to get something.  Somehow, I was locked in the bathroom.  Of course, my mother was especially worried as I was too small to get out of the tub and she worried an accident may happen, falling, drowning, anything. There was not a keyhole to insert anything in the knob to open the door with, not even a pass key type thing. The company had arrived and I was still in  there. It took a great deal of effort to get me out of there.  They had to wait for my father to get home to figure it out.  They all were at the door talking with me to prevent me from getting hurt. I think they ended up taking the hinges off of the door when my father got home.  I am not sure as I was so very young, but they have retold the story several times.  They must think my misfortunes are funny.   So, first they lock me in the bathroom and then they forget me in a doctor's office that locked the doors and closed up, as you read earlier. Haha.  Should I have a complex or what?? 

When I was pregnant with my first baby, we lived in an older house.  The bathroom had its issues.  Pregnant women, cannot venture far from the bathroom especially near the end of their term as it seems babies take residency on your bladder.  This was a small two bedroom home with only one bathroom. This one time I desperately needed to go but my husband was using it.  I thought he would never get off of that toilet!  I was loudly urging him to get out of there.  When he finally was finished I barely gave him time to get out of there and rushed to the toilet. I was so relieved to finally have my turn.  I sat down and remarkably, I never came to a stop.  What the heck??? The toilet fell through the floor!  So, here I am pregnant, sitting on a toilet like sitting in a recliner, my back against the wall and my feet in the air.  Don't forget my pants are down and I still cannot go to the bathroom, in this position.  Being of short stature and pregnant, I cannot lift myself off of this toilet. I am in there, arms flapping around and legs swinging.  I am sure screaming was done as well. You can imagine the incidents that followed, I am sure. I do not need to go into detail nor will I. Haha.  Then, I remember I still have to go to the bathroom.  I don't remember if we drove to a public bathroom or my mother's or if my husband suggested to use the sink or the tub and I don't really know what we did. I am pretty sure I would not have tried either of his suggestions, but I do not remember.  Desperation sometimes can take over.  We found that the floor was totally rotted through and my brother remodeled the bathroom! Anyone could have fallen through it, it had nothing to do with my weight, it was the timing.   My husband, not always thinking before he speaks either, claims I am so fat since I am pregnant I break the toilet and fall through the floor!  He suddenly becomes a broadcaster assuring the entire town knows this story. (He still uses this as the reason whenever he tells the story again.) Haha.  He is so funny! I claim he wore it down sitting on it so long before me.That is my story and I am sticking to it!

It is a wonder that I don't have some sort of phobia regarding bathrooms!  How ironic is it that 27 years later, one of my best friends has a hobby/passion for "bathroom selfies".  At public establishments, before the night is over, she manages to coerce as many people as she can into the bathroom and takes the selfie, herself in front holding the camera, everyone smiling,  and posts it to social media.  I have only agreed once to  be in her pictures.  With her permission, I could possibly post some of those photos here. She is becoming famous.  Sometimes people approach her asking to be in the selfie with her! Again, I am thankful there were no cell phones available back then, I am sure someone would have wanted that picture of me falling through the floor while on a toilet. Maybe we would have won $10,000.00?  

Hitching a Ride

We often visited my husband's family, a 45 minute trip. One particular time, I do not remember why but on the way home, my husband wanted me to drive.  We had four of the children with us, the two youngest and the two oldest.  He pulled over on the highway and stopped the van and told me to just climb over to the driver side and he would walk around. He is such a gentleman.  Too bad I am not as nice as he is!

He gets out of the van and helps me over to the driver seat and I get adjusted.  He then begins to walk around. I whisper to the kids that I am going to pretend to drive off to tease him.  He deserves this because every time we go to get in the van, he will edge forward and then backward while he is laughing at us walking forward and backward trying to get in to the van.  As you all know, a van does not really have much of a hood.  As we are slowly pulling away pretending that we are leaving, he quickly jumps on to the front of the van and is hanging on to the place where the wipers are hidden on the windshield.  You know where I mean, there is a small groove/trough type area he can hang on to.  Of course, I was not driving, I was just sitting there. The kids and I are dying laughing and I have the window down.  My husband has his head turned away from the road and is just lying on the van. He is all spread out, arms and legs stretched to the max and is out of breath and sort of panting. The way he has himself positioned there, he appears to be smashed to the front of the van and looks to be hanging on for dear life.  It actually looks as if he is attempting to keep the car from moving forward and is applying ever so much exertion that he is wearing himself out. What an actor!  He is pretty strong, but.....

A car approaches from the other direction and pulls up and stops.  So, you are picturing the entire thing, a guy sprawled across a van appearing to hang on for dear life and trying to stop the van from driving off with a woman behind the wheel laughing in delight. If you knew my husband you would fully appreciate this and you should have seen his facial expressions and body language.  He is just sprawled there lifeless looking and making such a face, looking sort of defeated all spread out across the windshield. A giant hood ornament! The driver of the car, is here to save my husband and found none of this humorous at all!  The more concerned the driver looked, the harder we laughed and the angrier the driver  seemed to become.  My husband is still just lying there portraying his part of the abused guy.  If I could have ever stopped laughing, I would have explained to the driver what we were doing, but everything just kept making us laugh more and I could barely breathe for laughing. He assesses the situation and sees me and all of the children just sitting there not even attempting to help this poor man, just laughing at his misfortune.  He then sort of glares at me and turns toward  my husband.  He says to my husband, "Buddy, do you need some help?"  That is all it took, now we totally lose it, we are hysterical.    Not my husband, straight faced as can be he gasps, "No, thanks, I am alright!"  and adjusts his grip on the car. Since he was trying not to laugh and to talk at the same time my husband's voice sounded weak and as if he were gasping for air.  The driver looked so compassionate and concerned about him, his eyes keep going from my husband with compassion to me with hate.  Again, more laughing. That driver thinks I am heartless and a murderer, I just know it!  It is like he knows that my husband needs help but in the position he is in, he has to refuse help.  Our laughter is uncontrollable now.  My husband turns his head the other direction and tries to stifle his laugh. I can see him trying to look up at me without moving his head and he is cracking up. He is loving this because the joke we tried to pull on him has backfired and he is getting all of this special attention while I am the bad guy.

I am beginning to wonder how to get out of it.  Will this guy ever just drive off and leave us alone?  It seems he just is at a loss of what to do.  He wants to help, but the guy is refusing it. He finally just shakes his head looking fed up and pulls away not seeing the humor in this at all. As he is driving away, he keeps looking back and shaking his head in contempt worried about my husband's fate yet thinking he was stupid enough to turn down help. I am sure that he is having second thoughts about leaving this man with those crazy people. I wish we would have had cell phones back then to video it, but it we had them, I am sure the police would have been called and on the scene.

Have any of you been in a situation you needed to get out of but just could not?  I am sure.  Haha.  Please comment below.

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Christmas Past - As A Child

Christmas - The Best Memories Ever --

 

Our mother and father would go all out.  Mom made so, so many candies and cookies.  Starting about the first of December there was always a table with some sort of candy on it.  Our biggest part of Christmas was usually Christmas Eve.  My father was a conductor for  New York Central Railroad, later to become Penn Central.  He was gone so much of the time. Christmas fell when dad was home, mostly that was Christmas Eve.

Mom always decorated the house beautifully in my opinion.  Our Christmas tree was  a real tree, probably because there were no artificial ones then.  I am not sure about that but I do remember when I saw my first "silver" tree.  We called them foil!  They also came out with white trees.  Do any of you remember those? I think my Grandmother was the first to have one in our family.  They also came out with a color wheel  that spun and had a light in it.  You put that under your tree and the colors spun around lighting and changing your foil tree.

Mom and Dad would bring our freshly cut tree  in and set it up. Mom said we had to wait until it warmed up and the branches dropped.  We could hardly contain our excitement.  That tree made the house smell so good!  It was always too large and had to be cut off, but it was so big and full. It was a perfect tree every time.  Mom or Dad always strung the lights as it was too difficult for us to do and perhaps because they wanted them done properly. We had the lights that made bubbles of liquid run up and down, in multiple colors. They were so pretty I could stare at them for hours. Next came the ornaments.  We would go through the box and we would find our "favorite" and tell the others that we got to hang that one.  We could only reach according to our heights, so the top was left to the older children and mom and dad. We also actually strung popcorn.  We never had the patience to completely do the tree in this but we had some chains of it.  I know a lot went into our stomachs!  Of course, this was popped in a kettle on the stove and not in a microwaved bag.  Incidentally, there was no such thing as a microwave then. We also hung the candy canes and made paper chains. Lastly, mom would precisely hang the tinsel.  It just sparkled and twinkled and made the tree perfect. She would give us the last bit and let us either hang it or toss it.  Such fun! Mom would take crepe paper in red and green and accordion fold it.  Then she opened it and hung it from corner to corner on the ceiling meeting in the middle at the light.  It was beautiful! I think the "old-fashioned" decorations were the best.

The presents began to appear under the tree.  We would assess our presents, pick them up to gauge the weight, shake them, anything to figure out what was in there! We even tried to press the paper flat in an attempt to see if we could read the box. Mom would always tell us to put the present down and not to shake it.  They always rattled.  She said it was just pieces and that Santa would put them together when he came. She said we would  break the pieces and of course if we did not behave, Santa would not fill the presents at all!  We took our chances and picked them up and shook them anyway. She said she had no idea what was in the box because only Santa did when he put the pieces together.  I never knew that Santa put presents together inside of the box!

The day of our Christmas, ALL of the candy was put out on a special table.  She made the good old fashioned candy, all homemade.  There was divinity, fudge rolls, refrigerator fudge, various cookies and pies, peanut butter balls, rum balls, church windows, every type of homemade goodies she could think of.  She even made me chocolate covered cherries! The fudge roll required a lot of stirring by hand, the recipe said stir until it lost it's gloss.  We had to take turns helping her stir that because it took so long and it got so stiff.  The older, stronger children were the ones who did the stirring at the end. Who knows, that may have just been mom's way of involving us. You will find the recipe that she used at the end of this article. The candy had real walnuts in it.  We would gather them and dry them and crack them ourselves.  On our candy table was also a variety of nuts that you had to crack yourselves.  Pecans, brazil nuts, hazel nuts, English walnuts and such.  Yum!  Brazil nuts were my favorite and seemingly the hardest to get out.  That pick was constantly used.  Sometimes, you were lucky and got the entire nut to come out at once. I still buy those today and set them out at Christmas. I do not make her fudges and candies, as I never really tried.  I was more interested in meat, potatotes and gravy. I sure do miss the tastes, though. All of the family would arrive and it was time for Christmas!

We would  finish eating and would be playing together, laughing and talking and out of nowhere you could hear sleigh bells ringing!!!  My mom would rush and tell us to get into the bathroom and shut the door!  If Santa knew we were around and still awake, we would get nothing in our boxes!  Boy did we hurry into that room.  We would make it just in time and we could hear his heavy stomping around up on the roof! Then we heard him..... Ho! Ho! Ho!  Gosh, it was certainly hard to stay in that room, but we had been eyeing those presents far too long to take a chance on losing them now! I can still feel the excitement we had while we were waiting.  Waiting and wondering what was beyond that door! We could hear him again stomping on the roof and we were told to come out.

There were so many new presents under the tree and the stockings were now filled.  The room was like an entirely different place, so sparkling and magical looking!  The cookies we left him were gone except for a few straggling crumbs on the plate.  The first thing we did was to head for the present that we had been wondering about and shaking the most.  Amazingly, that present no longer rattled!  Santa really did fill our presents!  Mom and Dad must have some sort of deal with Santa because we always seemed to get just what we wanted. How exciting Christmas was! My mother loved music.  We always had the music playing and we were always dancing.  Near the end of the night Mom would have us sing Christmas songs.  We always sang the joyful songs and we never knew all of the words and we did not sound the best.   We would finish and Mom would say, "one more".  We knew we had to sing Silent Night.  We were not good singers, well some were but not many of us.  I cannot sing for sure.  However, when our family was together and that song was done, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.  What wonderful memories Mom and Dad left us with.

This is a picture of the recipe that was in her cookbook - Granny's Cookbook.

Most Remembered Walmart Moment - Tell me yours

The Walmart stories are always abounding.  There are the videos of the people of Walmart and how they dress and various other "Walmart" stories going around. I, too, have numerous stories but I will not put those on here as most of them are negative.  Negativity brings you down and I would rather try to focus on the positive because it helps you retain your good mood.  It feels like a chore enough to "have" to go to Walmart and moreso when you have all of the negative encounters there.  I am going to share a story that, in my opinion, is just a tiny bit humorous, at least to me. Then I am inviting you to share your story here.  You can share whatever type you like, positive or negative, but please feel free to do so!

My husband and I always shop together and sometimes he is a real clown.  (The ones who know us are probably saying right now, "Sometimes?") We were entering the store and I, grabbed hold of a shopping cart.  For some reason, the cart was being stubborn and I could not get it to release.  I then noticed that it seemed as thought as I was pulling, it was being pulled in the opposite direction.  I made several attempts to free up this cart. I finally figured out that it was my husband jerking on it.  By this time I was frustrated and mildly angry.  (Again, those who know us are probably saying right now, "Mildly?") I simultaneously grabbed the cart whirled around to face him, pulled on the cart with all of my strength, made an angry face and stomped my foot! I also made some sort of angry sounding sigh.Okay, maybe it was some sort of a growl! Some man, who was not my husband, released the cart and said, "Just take the cart, lady!"

Why does my husband always walk off and leave me.  This was not the first time I have interacted with a stranger behind me that I assumed was my husband!  Words of apology started flying out of my mouth.  I proceeded to tell the man that I thought he was my husband and fell all over myself with kind words.  The man just walked off.  

Well, now my husband appears.  I told him the story and asked him to stop leaving me because this happens all of the time.  I told him that I explained to that man that I thought he was my husband.  Without missing a beat, my husband asked me, "Did he feel sorry for me when you told him that you thought he was my husband?"  That changed my mood and had me laughing.  However, some things never change, he still wanders off and I still make a complete fool of myself grabbing strangers behind me and saying inappropriate things.  Does this stop me?  No, I will continue embarrassing myself.  It would be okay but that doesn't even stop me.  Once I am embarrassed, I try to talk my way out of it and this often times makes it worse.  

Alright, now I want you to please share your story here.  It doesn't even have to be very long, just a comment or memory will be fine.