CHRISTMAS 2011 WRAP-UP

I am going to detour from the last few memories and give a wrap-up of this year's Christmas celebration. It was great fun. The kids were here from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning and I loved it. The two dogs were also here and the new little one (Finn) is a great dog but just needs abit more time to be completely house broken. We kept both dogs on the porch and kitchen and they were fine but I am sure would have preferred to sleep with their kids as they normally do. The adults in the family decided that the gifts were to come from a truck stop. OMG!! What a hoot - and yes the back of the tee shirt does say "Mess with me and you mess with the whole trailer park". I am going to show some pictures and the things you can get at the truck stops. Everyone has left and it is quiet and slow. I miss the hustle and bustle although I am glad to finally get out of the kitchen. The amount of kitchen trash accumulated was astounding.

MEMORIES 11

Today is Christmas Day. It has been very busy all day. Most Christmas Days have been good. One year before our son was born, I worked Christmas Eve from 7-3. We then jumped in the car and drove to Akron and spent the night at my parents. In the morning we opened gifts, packed them up and drove to Columbus to celebrate Christmas with John's side of the family. We then packed up the gifts and drove home and I went to work the next day. I said that was the last time for that. When we unpacked the gifts, there was one for my father-in-law that never made it out of the trunk. John's grandparents had a silver tree. You know the one with the rotating color wheel? I had a picture of it and now have to find it again. My computer is giving me hissy-fits and so I will not be able to post some of the pictures that I wanted. Instead I will post some of our son older and one of my parents taken the year before my father died.

One last comment about Christmas Day. As I have already stated, my father was dying twenty one years ago on Christmas Eve. He did pass away on Christmas Day. For quite awhile it changed the dynamic of Christmas and just recently have I been able to completly enjoy it.

MEMORIES 10

Christmas Eve. Over the years it has been a very mixed bag of celebrations. The good news is that there are no hard set traditions that if not followed bring on a gloom. However, having said that I could have done with a few less "exciting" Christmas Eves. As a child we went to the candlelight service at church. Several moments stand out. Our church has always sung "Silent Night" with the lights out and the church illuminated only by the candles held by the congregation. Once as a young girl after the song had ended, the woman in front of me sat down and I was still standing. I slightly burned the ends of her hair. My father blew it out and there was no damage. One other time my father put the candle between his knees and rubbed his hands together as if he were trying to warm up. I can still remember giggling and my mother somewhat mortified. Then there was the year my son was in the hospital over Christmas AND New Years. He was about 1 1/2 years old. A very difficult time and our Christmas Eve dinner was at McDonalds with my parents, uncle, JR and myself. JR had to go out of town for a year end audit and New Year's day was spent watching the Rose Bowl in a hospital room. The nurses used our room as the game update room. One Christmas Eve we were on our way back from Akron when the car quit running. Granted there was about a -50 mph wind chill going on but really!!! The Ohio State patrol rescued JR, me, our son and our very large lab. Jr and I sat in the back with the dog and our son up front. Woody (the dog) decided to let the trooper know how grateful he was to be rescued and gave a man a very long kiss up the side of his cheek. When we arrived at the travel stop we found there was no longer any food available. I got out my phone book, put the coins in the phone (pre cell-phone era) and starting calling everyone I knew. Luckily I found someone home and Hugh graciously came, picked us up, drove to our stranded car and retrieved our gifts. Our Christmas Eve dinner that night was a can of Campbells Chicken Noodle soup. There was the great time on our holiday cruise and I will cover that tomorrow but on Christmas Eve the evening show showcased the crew and their holiday traditions and songs. Very nice. Once our son was in seventh grade and had his catechism classes, I joined the church choir and sang with the choir for about 20 or so years. The worst Christmas Eve however was in 1990. My father was dying. I knew that but thought I had time. I had been to see him that day (my parents lived out of town) but came back to be with my family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was the last time I saw him. Since the hymn "Silent Night" was special to me because of the memories with my dad, I found that I have not been able to sing this song at the Christmas Eve services. I did manage to sing it last year but that was the first time. This year our Christmas Eve dinner is going to be tacos since the grandkids like them and we will be eating large meals over the next few days. Friends are stopping over since their Christmas Eve tradition has changed with the passing of a family member. We just have to be able to ebb and flow with the tides of life.

MEMORIES 9

I first met John September 19, 1964 the first day of college. We dated that first school year and then he was drafted. We were out of touch for almost a year. These next pictures were taken at my house in Sandusky OH in 1966. In the one picture we are playing gin (and look soooooo young). The other picture is of our house. He was deployed to Thailand in January of 1967 and was there for a year. That was a period of time prior to the widespread use of cellphones and e-mail. We communicated by letter and used that thin flimsy air mail paper. I did receive one phone call during that time and it had to be routed through Okinawa and over a two way radio. I had to say "over" when finished so he could then talk and vice-versa.

MEMORY 7

As I previously stated, my Christmas's were quiet. On Christmas Eve, I could open one gift and then we went to the candlelight service at church. As I got older, I sometimes opened that one gift after church. We opened gifts on Christmas morning and at some time had our dinner. Since extended family did not enter the picture, we would celebrate with friends. I am including a picture of my parents friends. We would all go out to dinner and exchange presents. I did not include pictures of us girls. Those early teen pictures are pretty bad.

MEMORIES 7

Here are some pictures of various Christmas Days. I did note a recurring theme. It appears that I did receive a good number of dolls over the years. I still have several and I do have the Terri Lee doll. I also saw that I received a table, chairs and a tea set, an organ - that was my precursor to learning the piano, and there was one with me on the tricycle. That picture did not make the cut. My mother would buy some of the clothes but because she was such a phenomenal seamstress, she made many of my doll clothes. I noticed that the top picture must have been from the living room since the dining room wallpaper is missing. That year was 1956 and I believe I have all three of those dolls - although one needs the services of a good doll hospital.

MEMORIES 6

The postings will be fast and furious now. This picture is the only one I have with both Grandmothers. The one on the left (as you view it) is the grandmother from the farm and the one on the right is my Great-Grandmother. They were at my house to celebrate my birthday - I saw pictures of me blowing out candles.

MEMORIES 5

This excerpt was taken from ohiohistorycentral.org. The Thanksgiving snowstorm of 1950 was the deepest in Ohio's history. I mention this because my birthday is always around Thanksgiving and I am sure that the snow was still around for Christmas. This was the weekend of the famed Ohio State vs. Michigan Blizzard bowl. The temperature was 5 degrees with winds around 40mph. The game was played in Columbus on Saturday with Michigan winning with a score of 9-3 with 27 total yards gained and without achieving one first down. The storm began on Friday and continued through Sunday. In the eastern part of Ohio snow depths reached 33" in Steubenville, 30" in Geneva and 29" in Youngstown. The Ohio National Guard used Jeeps to transport people to hospitals and deliver food to rural homes. Buildings collapsed under the weight of 2 to 3 feet of snow. The drifts in some areas reached 25 feet. The one picture I am posting is from across our back porch. You can see how high the snow is stacked on the post. The other picture is one of me in my sled. I am not sure it is from that storm since I think I might be too young in the picture and there was no date on it.

MEMORIES 4

I am adding another picture with Santa. There are only two. I have not posted much because I was trying to find the right photo album. I finally did find it. The problem with going through the picture albums and and scrapbooks is that it truly brings back memories. It accentuates the loss, the loss of family members and friends and the loss of childhood innocence. I grew up in a simpler and less complicated time. Over the next few days I wil show pictures of my early Christmas and most pictures are of me sitting by the tree with my presents. It was great fun to see those pictures.

MEMORIES NO 3

I am struggling to post interesting memories. We had a small to moderate size house. There were three bedrooms and one bath up with an eat-in kitchen, dining room, sun room, living room and foyer on the first floor. The basement did have a toilet but no sink etc. At some point my parents converted the dining room into a family room and the sun room became the dining room. In the beginning the tree was in the living room. My father was a salesman for a company and at Christmas would receive some small gifts. One gift was a fairly large round plastic container of cashew nuts. My father would not open this until Christmas Day but I do remember reaching up into the container to pull out a few cashews ahead of time. I was very careful not to break the scotch taped areas so as to (in my mind at least), preserve the image that the nuts were undisturbed. I am sure my parents knew but they never said anything. I am including a picture of my house - it is the white house with green awnings - and a picture of me with Mr. Bear. I still have Mr. Bear and he appeared in the story of the 5 Christmas Bears as one of the ancient ones.

MEMORIES, MEMORIES 1 AND MEMORIES 2

Remember, I said to scroll down at least 3-4 postings to reach all of the memories. I prewrote 3 of them. I have posted the first three as of today (Dec 5).

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

I tried to pre-write a few of this year's Christmas postings and put them on hold. Unfortunately they are subsequently being published by the date I originally wrote them. Please scroll down several postings to "Memories" for the initial Christmas posting for this year.

VACATION REVIEW

We are back from vacation and getting ready for the holidays. We traveled 15 hours the first day leaving just a mere 5+ hours the second in order to get back in time for the Winter Dance - the kick-off to the holidays. We had sunshine all the way on I-75 from Riveria Beach until the Ohio River. Once we crossed the Ohio into Cincinnati we went from sunshine to cloudy. Amazing. The pictures with the palm trees and ocean and the one of the spanish moss tree were from Hilton Head an the view of the ocean and beach was from Singer Island Fl. While in Florida I shopped at Bloomingdale. They had great clothes and a great sale. I basically bought $580 of merchanise for $88. Not bad. The almost two weeks were a great way to relax.