Memory Monday: Our Christmas Tree

3 generations around the Christmas tree in 1982

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE

It is that time of the year!!! I love the last two months of the year. And this year is even better. First of all, by Thanksgiving weekend, I already had all my Christmas shopping done. Then the day after Thanksgiving, my husband and I got out the tree and the decorations. I spent the afternoon putting on the ornaments. Now, this is my favorite part of my favorite time of the year. I have never been one to want a themed tree—like snowflakes or teddy bears—or one that was color-coordinated—like silver and blue or gold and red. No, my trees have always been memory ones.

I didn’t really plan it that way. It’s just the way it happened and I liked it, so I continued doing it. Both sets of our parents always had lights and tinsel garlands on their tree. I can’t remember if they gave us any of those, but I do know that we couldn’t afford to buy ornaments—I was a college student and my husband had only a part-time job. We didn’t have the internet at that time, so I tried to figure out what we could do to decorate a tree. Months before Christmas, I figured out that we could save the shells from the eggs we used for breakfast and use them for ornaments. I would poke holes in the end of each egg and blow the egg yolks and whites out into a bowl. I almost blew my eardrums out doing this because I didn’t know until much later that I should have inserted a skewer and broken up the yolk before I tried to blow it out that little hole at the end. Still, I saved about four dozen intact shells. My husband and I dyed the shells with Easter egg dye the night of the only night launch by NASA. We used those egg ornaments for several years, then slowly started to replace them. Still, they were special, and for the last 44 years, we have had at least one eggshell ornament on our Christmas tree each year.

Later as my husband’s grandmother and parents passed down some of their ornaments, our trees became memory Christmas tree with each of those ornaments hanging on our tree. Then, our children made ornaments in school that we just had to add to our tree. A great-aunt and her daughter sent our children some very special ornaments that still hang on our tree. I made some ceramic ornaments, among several other homemade ones, when I was in my “crafty stage.” When our daughter married and moved out, she took a few of her ornaments and a couple of our egg ones, as well.

When our son was in grade school, he saw one of those Hallmark ads about getting a special ornament each year. He asked if we could do that, too. For those, we tried to select things that were important to him each year—like Boy Scouts, computers, and cats. A couple of years ago, he moved into a new apartment and I passed on his special ornaments, but I also gave him a couple of our egg ornaments.

This year, we are starting a new group of memory ornaments on our tree. As I have said before, our daughter and her husband are adopting a two-year-old girl. I have already started her ornament collection, dating the back of each one. This year’s ornament is a see-through snowman because she loves “nowmen.” And Grandmommy has to get her little darling what she wants.

Throwback Thursday: Children with a Birthday Cake

From my "old and unknown" file:

Little boy: “I can fix it. She’ll never know I took a bite.”

That was my caption. What's yours? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Memory Monday: What I Give Thanks For

My father, grandfather, and step-grandmother

WHAT I GIVE THANKS FOR

I love Thanksgiving and not just because of the turkey. Actually, we don’t have turkey. We have smoked meat. Last year, it was brisket and ribs. This year, it is pulled pork. See, we are equal opportunity meat-eaters—as long as we can smoke it on my son’s Traeger smoker. Now with that explained, let me share what I love about Thanksgiving. It is the THANKSGIVING. There is so much to be thankful for—the memories of those who have gone before me, leaving lessons lovingly taught about right and wrong, about helping, sharing, and giving, lessons lived out before me in the lives of my parents, grandparents, assorted aunts and uncles, as well as the stories passed down about those who lived before me. The lessons I value most  deal with faith. I have been blessed to have seen the faith of my parents. I loved to hear the way my father prayed, especially in his later years and the way my mother always spoke about how God had blessed her in simple little ways, like how He washed her car when He sent rain.

I am thankful that my father, as well as a large number of other men in my family, took up arms and fought for our country. My father is pictured above in his Army Air Corp uniform during WWII. I have family who also fought for America through the years, including a number who fought for our freedom from England in the American Revolution. There are also several of my generation who have served in our military, and for them, I am also thankful.

I am thankful for my wonderful husband of 44 years and the way he cherishes me, the way he takes care of the house so I can have time to write, and the way has been a wonderful father and example to our children through the years.

I am thankful for the generations that are coming after me—our son and our daughter, along with her husband and daughter. There is so much thankfulness in my heart for our granddaughter and the privilege and blessing of taking care of her while her parents work.

There are so many more blessings for which I’m thankful—things that God pours out on my family and me every day of my life. Thank you, God, for loving me, for blessing me, for Jesus. Thank You.

What fills your heart with thankfulness as Thanksgiving Day approaches (and every day)?

Throwback Thursday: A Man with Bananas

From my "Old and Unknown" Files

Man holding bananas: “Yep, my job is to feed the monkeys.”

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments below.

Memory Monday: Voting in Our Family

My Mother

VOTING IN OUR FAMILY

A number of years ago—after my father passed away, my mother moved to the same town where my family and I lived. I remember asking her about voting. She told me that my father and she had never voted and she didn’t plan to now. I thought how sad never to feel a part of the larger happening of our country.
Do you remember how you looked forward to getting old enough to finally vote? I do. The thing was that when I was 19 or 20, the voting age changed from 21 to 18, so the “first time” I could vote passed me by. The first time I got to vote, I was just one of lots of others that were voting. OK, I got over that—kinda.
Through the years, my husband and I have always voted—well, to be completely honest, there were a few school election/budget votes we forgot about. After we had children, we always took them with us, even into the voting booths and showed them how we marked our ballots, then put them into the voting machines. For years, our daughter called it “boting.”
Now that we have a two-year-old granddaughter (and get to watch her while her parents work), we decided to take her with us when we voted earlier this month. We talked about it from the time her daddy brought her before work until we left to go “bote”—yes, she used the same word our daughter had years before, even though we tried to get her to say “vote.” We had planned to vote about 10 in the morning, knowing from past experience that would be the least busy time, and we, and our little granddaughter, would get in and out quickly. We were in for a rude awakening. The parking lot was filled (that had never happened before). When we peeked inside, we were told that the line waiting to vote was at least an hour long. No way could we keep our little precious corralled that long, especially as lunch (and nap) time was approaching. We started to leave when she got really upset. She kept calling out to vote—or in her words “bote.” All the way home, she cried out to bote. We ended up waiting for her mother to pick her up, then we voted—the line was so long we still had to wait an hour. I think our daughter took her to vote with her, so our little one didn’t totally miss out on voting day.
I just hope our granddaughter keeps her enthusiasm for voting and does it every time she can once she is old enough to do it.

Throwback Thursday: Veteran's Day

This week's Old and Unknown Picture:

To all our veterans on this Veterans’ Day, thank you for your service.

Feel free to leave Veteran's Day thoughts in the comments below.

Memory Monday: Food and Clothing Part 2

My Great-Great Grandfather

FOOD AND CLOTHING PART 2

Last week, I shared what a man would eat in sixty years according to the magazine Facts for Farmers, also the Family Circle from 1865. The picture above is my great-great grandfather. He was born in 1801 and died in 1881, so he would have eaten a bit more food that was listed last week. Today, I am sharing—from the same article—how much fabric it would take to cloth the same gentleman back then. When you think about what we wear today—lots of tees, shorts, and jeans, it seems almost impossible for one person to use that much fabric for his or her clothes even in sixty years. Here is the second part of that article:

We estimate that a full-dressed man carries about fifty yards of cloth upon his body, or at least it has taken so many square yards of Cloth to make the following garments:

one under and one over shirt and drawers, eight yards; vest, with all its inside and out, four yards; coat, overcoat, and cloak, 32 yards; the handkerchiefs in the coat and cloak pockets, two yards; pants, lined, four yards.

Then we may add a night-shirt, four yards, and morning wrapper, 10 yards, and we have 64 yards for a single suit. Allow six of these suits a year—of some garments he will want more, and some less than six, but take that as an average, and we have 384 yards for the gentleman's wardrobe one year. Multiply that by sixty years, and two have 23,040 yards of cloth, which appears a fair allowance, as we throw out the ten years of childhood.

With these garments be will want each year two pair of boots, two pair of shoes, two pair of slippers, two pair of rubbers or overshoes-480 pairs. With these he will wear sixty dozen pairs of stockings and (four hats a year) 240 hats.

I will say nothing about the yards of cloth that he will want about his toilet and table, his carpets and curtains, and his bed, with its daily change of bedding; but you can imagine it would make a large spread. The great question for consideration, in an agricultural point of view, is this: Could such a consumer of earth's products produce as much as he consumed, with all industry applied during life, or would he be dependent upon the labor of others?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll stick to the tees, jeans, crocs, and an occasional jacket. What about you?

Throwback Thursday: Boy on a Car

From my "old and unknown files":

Boy: This makes a fun slide, but you got to watch out that your britches don’t get caught on the trunk handle

That was my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.