Thursday, December 18, 2008

CHRISTMAS SECRETS 

AntiqueMommy has her blog up and running again (after having her website destroyed by hackers at Thanksgiving), for which I’m grateful!  She lists some random things about herself, and I thought someone might be dying to know some things about me (well, maybe not, but here you have it…).

I have 20 kinds of Christmas wrapping paper downstairs, because I like variety.  I have to keep an eye on my husband, who would prefer to wrap everything the same and get rid of some of those tubes. 

I keep them in an old wastebasket.

I have 2 presents under the tree for myself that I bought myself.  They’re not wrapped, but I’m not allowed to look at them, play with them, or read the instructions.

On Christmas morning, we eat quick things that we don’t usually have the rest of the year:  frozen pastries, bacon, and cheap frozen pizza.

The bottom half of our Christmas tree is not decorated this year; we have a teenage cat in the house.

I vividly remember many of the Christmas gifts my parents got us for Christmas, as it was a very exciting time for our family!  When I was three years old, I wanted a Thumbelina doll, and told my mother that I had prayed to God about it.  I did get that doll for that Christmas.  When I outgrew her, my baby brother took her over, and he used to fling her into his crib when it was bedtime and fling her out in the morning.  I have her still (although her head no longer turns with the crank), and she’s wearing a dress I wore as a baby. 

I remember the rapture of Santa coming to our town each year.  He arrived in the firetruck, and we lined up in an empty storefront to have a visit with him.  There were no fancy decorations, no photographer…just a folding chair grabbed on the spur of the moment as he passed through town.  He always gave each of us a bag of candy. 

Christmas, growing up, was always about Santa and gifts.  I am so very grateful that now, with my family, it is so much more than that. 

That being said…Although my boys are teens, I still carry-on making noise, shaking bells, and ho-ho-ho-ing after they go to bed, pretending to be Santa as I fill their stockings (boys, don’t read this paragraph!). 

From the time of our first Christmas together, my husband and I have gone to a nursing home/rest home sometime on the day of Christmas Eve, to give presents to a stranger (who is a stranger no longer) and/or to visit people we know who live there (which is the case as we grow older!).

I try to be creative with the annual Christmas letter.  Once it was a bookmark with statistics on it (Bars of soap I made this year:  107; Decibels of son’s bagpipes:  130).  Once it was a “find-the-object” photograph, with instructions on what these objects meant to us (Cannon:  seen while touring Gettsyburg).  Sometimes it is terrible poetry (“…tears out her hair in her Supermom role, there’s no time for thinking—she’s always on the roll”).  This year it will be a crossword puzzle.

I like to read Christmas-themed romances and/or mysteries this time of year.

And I have an organized list of what food items I need to buy for the holidays (this many bags of sugar, this many bags of Hershey kisses, etc.), so I don’t have to re-invent the wheel every year!

7 comments:

  1. What a great post! Do you have some favorite Christmas-themed romances to recommend? I don't mind the "iffy" ones.

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  2. @TeacherPerson - @TeacherPerson - Ah, no. I'm so embarrassed about it that I never write them down...here are a couple I did write down; they're OK. Clark, Carol Higgins: The Christmas Thief. Flagg, Fannie: A Redbird Christmas. This is nice--Pilcher, Rosamunde: Winter Solstice. This website Christmas Booklist has a lot of good-sounding ones too!

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  3. I love your giving yourself 2 gifts....after Christmas - tell us what you got!

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  4. Oh my. Where should I start with my comments?First: I cannot believe you are so organized to actually be reading a Christmas book. I am impressed.Next: Indeed. We need to know what gifts you bought yourself. Not too late to go do some shopping for myself, either.Next: not to be critical, just a suggestion: put the part about "boys, don't read this paragraph" *at the beginning* of the paragraph.And finally, we will have to compare Christmas letters in person some day. We have had some overlap in ideas. :D

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  5. Thanks for the booklist! How funny that our Christmas breakfasts are polar opposites. We go all out on homemade everything (and we don't touch the presents until after we are through.)I have a new blog if you'd like to add me to your list: www.addmorechocolate.blogspot.com-Renee

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  6. No time at Christmas : past time and present time are mixed but it ' s always  Christmas in our hearts .
    Thank you for the tips  for the cold .Love Michel

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  7. That was fun to read.  I, too, want to know what you got for yourself.  I bought & wrapped a present for myself one year.  My family thought I was weird.
    Now that I think about it, my 21-y/o bought one of his own presents this year (a new comforter for his bed) w/Hubz' money and left it here for us to give him.  Whatever; he's hard to buy for anyway.

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