just a few likes this week but I do like this IKEA star we put on a timer to come on each night.
I caught site of it's shadow one morning... thought it was artsy!
I tried making sugared pecans this week
they came out so good, easy to make and we sneak in and grab some a couple times a day
I put up just the mantle decoration this weekend, to lift our spirits
Our prompt this week:
How was Christmas done in your childhood home/family?
example, if you woke earlier than the parents did you have to
wait? Did the gifts go under the tree after you went to bed? did
your family all exchange gifts? Did you dig in and all open your
gifts at the same time or have to go around a circle opening one
at a time?
remember silver tinsel (Ice-sickles) on trees? magical!
Early in my childhood we had a real tree, and I had to go to bed early on Christmas Eve. Not allowed to come out or sneak a peek before the parents got up. My parents had two daughters who were married by the time I was 5 (I'm adopted) so we spent the day with them often.
My mother , as Santa spent a lot of time arranging packages and a couple open things. I remember one year with a tricycle front and center, another year with a big doll, another with a bike. Since it was just me mostly, I was told to just open the gifts and loved, still love, all the little things in a stocking.
When I was about 12 we got a silver tinsel tree with a light wheel that twirled.
I remember as a10 year old handling one tubular shaped wrapped present and trying to guess what it was. It was the first thing I opened Christmas morning, it was from granny (who had lots of grand kids and not a lot of money) it was a roll of quarters, I felt RICH. you can buy a lot of penny candy with that after school.
In Tampa, the wonder bread business held a yearly event of a tour of the factory and free tiny loaf of white bread. I always wanted to go, loving bread so much. The city had a creche and my family took a film of 3 year old me running to kiss the baby Jesus and getting clothes-lined on the ropes. Knocked me flat and the family laughed.
lest you think it was all good times It was not Hallmark-ville around our house.
one parent always fell of the wagon after being given alcohol by his family yearly, the other parent going thru the motions but openly resentful that she never got lots of toys. From the outside it looked like a good home...
So when I left to live on my own, Christmas became a decorator's dream with me. I fell in love with tiny ornaments collected on travels, sparkly twinkle lights, a big real tree. I was a social worker and poor generally but kept up the magical sparkling time with foods and decorations. My first dog Chelsea, a big black lab took a bite out of all ornaments she could reach as an older puppy. A chelsea-bite. I cry when I see them surface, remembering that year as one where I wasn't alone.
Milo's Memories
Milo loved toys but got overstimulated with more than one at a time. At most I gave him three wrapped so that he could tear the paper off! He would play with it, then go get an old toy and spend time with it. He was a fair and just poodle.
The shark sleeps on our bed now. In his toybox is a pea pod stuffie he picked out as a puppy. We went on a Christmas stroll in Frederick MD the three of us. He loved shopping like Cole did, looking at everything eye level and lower, not touching, til he spied that pea pod. He sniffed it, and grabbed it, taking it to the counter to be paid for. He watched the clerk closely, as she took off the price tag. I said no need to wrap it, he'll escort it out and he pranced at the end of the leash holding that toy. He never tore that one up, we still have it.
Our family is broken hearted without him this year, the first Christmas without him.
now please visit these folk to read their lists this week
