Random Acts of Living


Sunday, December 16, 2007

Christmas Past

On several others blogs I've found people reminiscing about Christmases past. So I thought I might contribute to the memories with a post or two myself. Amazingly I do not have any one special Christmas that I remember. My early childhood eludes me, leaving scattered vague memories. Fortunately, I have pictures. The picture below was obviously NOT taken in 1986. I had an old daybook that I pondered adding to the landfill and I had a stack of old photos that I didn't have an album to put them in. Soooo... the daybook has become a nice photo album with plenty of space to write whatever notes I want (and sometimes the printed quotes and what had been written makes an amusing connection with the old photos). Below two pages from that album of my brother and myself at Christmas in our trailer. I'm not sure where we were living at the time. My dad worked road construction and we moved around a lot. That's why we were living in the trailer. There was another family that moved around with us. Their dad worked with my dad and the families have been lifelong friends.
Not really sure but I think this was my 2nd Christmas. Looks like we both just got a couple presents, but we're pleased as punch! I just wanted to point out the stacking toy and the dustpan in the window over the couch. I still have those.
I especially remember going to the grandparents houses for Christmas. I don't know how often we did this when I was younger, but when I got older this was something I looked forward to every Christmas. Mom's folks lived in Goodland, KS and Dad's folks were in Burlington, CO right across the state line. So we'd spend time with one then load up the car and spend some time with the other. I remember Mom's mom having a lazy susan filled with homemade Christmas candies. I think the Christmas dinner smelled better than Thanksgiving. It was just always a wonderful time of travel, family and warm feelings.

9 comments:

Anita said...

Wonderful memories, and I love the pictures! How lucky you are to still have those things!
Great post... :)

Moonshadow said...

And they could be gone in a flash... I guess I could pack everything up and hide it all away in a vault somewhere, but then I couldn't enjoy it. What a burden "things" can be, especially when you're the "Keeper of Things". I'm the one that "things" are always given to. I'll post my pictures of my little things on my bookshelf if everyone promises to ignore the dust. In our drafty old house, I dust one day and it settles back on everything in an hours or two. So I don't bother. Is it a deal, you'll ignore the dust?

Anita said...

I wish I would have scanned more of our old photos, and had them on disk in a "fire proof" box stored in the basement... We would still have copies of them, at least...
I'm real good at ignoring dust!! ;) I haven't dusted in weeks...lol

Peter said...

Hi! Photos from the past are great. It's a shame we do not rememeber EVERYTHING from our time as kids. Even though I'm getting on a bit, I do remember some Christmas events as a wee child. All good of course. I even remember the gifts I received. Little small cars and metal meccano sets. I wonder where they are now? Dad would be there with his little box brownie camera taking shots. Oh! to be young again. As for my grandparents, they would feed us home made puddings and make us delicious "lemonade spiders" to drink.

Thank you for rekindling my memories from the past!

Regards
Peter

Moonshadow said...

anita - I probably won't post the pictures of the things on my shelfs till after Christmas.

Peter - What you knew as meccano sets we knew as erector sets. My brother had one that he played with all the time along with his log cabin set. I think my mom still has both sets along with his electric train. OH! I forgot about his tinker toys, I think she might still have those too. I have a little china tea set in it's original box and a small stack of Little Golden books. I've never heard of "lemonade spiders", now you have to tell me all about them.

Peter said...

Hi! It's easy. Put some ice cream into the bottom of a glass and carefully pour in Lemonade. It will froth up as you do it so be gentle. Then drink to your hearts content. Bright coloured soft drinks are great too - regards Peter

Moonshadow said...

Thank you, Peter! Interesting, here we call soft drinks + ice cream = floats. Root beer floats are real popular. Mom always fixed us drinks with 7UP and lime sherbert. Do you have those there? I really like how these foamed up.

WichitaKsDailyPhoto said...

What cute old photos of you and your brother. Besides the two of you - I took notice of the venetian blinds. They must of been the "in" window treatment of the times - they are in my childhood photo's, too.

Peter said...

Hi! I don't think we have 7UP but I do remember drinking Dr Peppers though. For the moment I'll stick to my diet Coke. Still does the same thing, just that I can twice as much! - regards Peter