I love Christmas time. It is my absolute favorite time of the year. In fact, if we could have Christmas all year around, I would be thrilled. As a child, my parents did a wonderful job of getting up excited, decorating, baking, entertaining and sharing the joy of Christmas and Christ’s birth. I can still remember the Christmas tree and some of the decorations that we had for the tree. There were about six little blue angels with cute pink faces that sat on swings. Then there were the ice cream cones make out of gold and red foil paper that were decorated with little bulbs for the ice cream. I was fascinated with the angel tree topper that we had. She had lights in her skirt and one in each hand. I cringe when I remember the bulb I cut out of yellow construction paper at school that contained my kindergarten black and white picture.
Such joy and excitement filled my heart as a child. My bother and I could hardly wait. We thought we would burst before Santa came for a visit. And of course, when Santa did visit, he always brought what we wanted. We would be so delighted. Christmas tradition in our home brought us cherry cream cheese pie and golden crown rolls. Big fat peppermint sticks from Grandma that usually got about half eaten before they were tossed. Mom would always make hard-tac candy with several different flavors and then give it away with cookies as gifts. My favorite was the cinnamon. She would also make peanut butter fudge and mash potato candy which was always a special treat. The aroma of fresh baked cinnamon rolls with powdered sugar icing was enough to send us running to the breakfast table after we had opened all our gifts.
Then there were the traditions that led up to Christmas which were also important to us kids, like the drive around the local area to look at all the Christmas lights. There was this one house that used to put out a whole bunch of lights and ornaments in their yard. It was just like Little Wonderland to me as a child. The owner must have spent a fortune on electricity every Christmas, but I’m so glad he did. He gave me memories that I’ll never forget. There are neighborhoods now that have competitions on how many lights they can put out. I know that some of them have them wired up so that they are run by their computer. They must be using some kind of device like the X10 USB PC Transceiver and probably the X10 Plug-In Controllers. Whatever devices he used, it didn’t matter to me as a child. He had whisked me away to another world when I saw his lights and it was wonderful.
Now I am old and I have tried to establish some memorable traditions with my children. I have continued the tour of Christmas lights but added the bonus of a stop at Starbucks for peppermint hot chocolate before going home. My only wish is that my children have as many exciting memories of Christmas time as I do and that they can’t wait for it to happen every year.
Leave a Reply