I remember how much fun my Christmas' were. I remember the first time I tried eggnog and the first present I got from my father. Sometimes mum let me sleep with her on Christmas Eve. She always takes me to get my picture taken with Santa and I still remember my first picture with him. Most of the time we go over to Nanny and Gramps on Christmas Eve for awhile and when we come home I have to go to bed so mum can get stuff ready for Santa to come. Before I go to bed I am allowed to open one present and I always sleep with the present I opened. Nanny and Gramp usually come over Christmas morning and watch me open a few presents and I show them what I got. I am always very hiper at Christmas. I play with my toys and after that we go to Nannies for Christmas dinner. I remember my first Christmas nap and I usually still have one.
As the story goes "I was born at a very early age to poor but very honest parents" LOL Some of my most precious memories are of Christmas past. Although we never had alot of material things (most would say we were dirt poor). I never felt like we were so, I guess I didn't realize what poverty meant. I always thought we had what we needed and that was shelter, lots of good food, warm clothes and what I remember most is the smell of our mothers bread and cakes baking throughout the days, and the clicking of her knitting needles as she sat knitting mitts and socks for our large family. She could even knit in the dark. What an amazing woman she was. She was one who could literally make something out of nothing. She must have loved her family very much to have worked so hard and she was completely unselfish. If someone was to go without, she would make sure she would be the one. If I could send a message to her this Christmas I would say, Thanks Mum I see now how you sacrificed for us and how you always made sure we had the very best times at Christmas that your meagre funds could provide for us, and I remember the joy in your eyes as we took our gifts from Santa into your bedroom to show you what he had brought for us. I see now that our happiness at what we had received was your joy, even though you nay not have had a gift under the tree yourself. I want to pay tribute to you Mum. You were wonderful. At school we would always have a Christmas concert. We would pratice for weeks to get our recitations and carols just right. We went to a one room schoolhouse in the early years and our teacher would teach from one to six or eight. Sometimes the older students would be about the same age as the teacher it seemed. One year our teacher, Miss Graham, had a guitar and she accompanied us as we sang. She could really sing too so what a fantastic concert we thought we had that year. We had a wire across the front and sheets for curtains. How proudly we waited for the curtain to be drawn when our turn came. Our parents would come and we would do our parts taking such pleasure in the applause. We would draw names so there would be a gift for Santa to hand out to each student and the teacher would give us all bags of treats. We would have hot chocolate and goodies that our parents had brought to lunch on and then we would be bundled up and put back in the sleighs or wagons for the trip back home. On the way we would look at the clear skies with their sparkling stars and Mum and Dad would point out the Milky Way to us. That was the road Santa would use on Christmas Eve. (Funny we only noticed the Mily Way around Christmas time.) On Christmas Eve our Dad would go out and throw snow up on the roof to make us think Santa and the reindeer had really landed there. Usually when our older brother would open the stove door to start the fire in the morning, he would find that Santa had dropped a piece of candy, an orage or a couple of nuts there while making the escape back to the chimney. My best memories are of the Christmas dinners with the big family all together with the biggest variety of vegetables ever. Back then we usually had chicken that were raised on our farm and needless to say it took more than one to feed us all. They would be roasted to a golden brown and the gravy was the crowning touch. There were pies of different kinds, real mincemeat, fudge, cookies and many other wonderful treats to satisfy even the fussiest taste buds. How wonderful it would be to go back to the country and our childhood for one Christmas. To trek through your own woodland and pick a Christmas tree and proudly bring it home to be trimmed. To go outside on a clear night and see the stars on a cloudless night, to see the Milky Way and try to imagine Santa flying along it. But best of all to look toward the east and see if we could see that bright, wondrous star that told the Wise Men that the Christ Child had been born to bring redemption to fallen man.
