Starting today, and every day through December 25th, I would love for you to write just one little memory you have of the holidays. Be sure to use your senses to recall specifics. Think back to your childhood and name the key people, places, traditions, foods, and songs that were, or continue to be, important to you at this time of year.
Are there any gifts you gave or received that were extra meaningful to you? What about the weather or a favorite article of clothing? Perhaps you want a food-focused list where you describe, in detail, the tastiest treats from holiday seasons past. Maybe you had one particular holiday event that will forever stick out in your mind. You could focus on one detail from that event on each of the remaining days.
You can quickly jot down a sentence on a scrap of paper or sit down at your computer and type out an entire story, if you feel inspired. Just take a moment to connect with holidays past. Feel free to comment below with your memories each day. It would be fun for us all to read them.
Please be sure to participate in this informal, final-days-of-the-holiday-season writing challenge whether or not you celebrate Christmas. I would love to hear about any and all ceremonies and traditions you have honored and held dear in your life.
13 Comments
Judi
I was born in a small city in upstate New York, population approximately 30 thousand. We lived on Cedar Street. My memories there are limited, although there are some pictures to help me out. Sadly, I have no memories of Christmas there. I remember snow, although not necessarily related to Christmas, and I remember a small silk flag in the window denoting we had someone in the service. I remember the big, beautiful Christmas cactus blooming and being told repeatedly not to touch it. Other memories have no relationship to Christmas whatsoever. It wasn’t until we moved up into the Catskill Mountains that my memories of Christmas began…
Judi
Day 2 – When we moved up into the mountains my memories of Christmas begin. I remember all the baking my mother did: cookies, pies, fudge, a cake… the house just smelled delicious all the time. Mostly she had to keep me out of the kitchen, not that it was small. It was not! It had the big, black wood burning stove with four “burners” and two ovens, a little electric stove over in the corner, the sink and drain board on the other side, and the kitchen table under the window. The back wall was covered with shelves where my other stored her dishes and glasses, baking tins, cake stand, pie dishes and muffin pans. On the other side of the door, but on the same wall, were the mixing bowls and casserole dishes, mason jars both full and empty. The floor was yellow block linoleum and there was a piece of oil cloth on the table. The walls were yellow as well. It was the place where all the eating miracles of the season took place, and I had to stay out from under foot!
Beverly
So good to read your stories again, Judi. With that wood burning stove, I can see why your mom kept her little one out of the kitchen. I remember those, though Mother and Dad didn’t have one in our kitchen. However, my grandmother did, and Mother and Dad hauled a small wood-burning stove down to the basement. They kept a fire in it when snow, sleet, and freezing temperatures came around. It helped keep the house warm through the floors. If we lost electricity, it could cook any meal you wanted.
Beverly
I can still smell the cedar trees Dad would chop down in the woods above our house for Christmas. They were red cedars, about six feet tall, ready to be decorated with lights–the ones with the big bulbs, and if one went out, you could replace it with another one. I remember they were glass and whatever they were painted with usually flaked off after a few years’ use.The scent is strong, earthy, and comforting. It reminds me also of cedar chests, cedar closets, cedar boxes.The clean, fragrance lingers.
Judi
What a beautiful memory! I had forgotten how the aroma of the tree filled the house…and those old lights! In the story books there were candles on the tree and I remember thinking how modern we were with electric lights.
Judi
Day 4 I loved watching my mother make the wreath for the front door. She would cover the kitchen table with newspaper and bend open a wire coat hanger into a circle. The crooked part would be the part that hung the wreath. She’d bring the bushel basket containing all the things we collected yesterday into the house and set it on a kitchen chair. She tie the end of the creeping cedar to the wire frame with my Dad’s fishing line and begin to wrap it around and around the hanger. When that was done, she’d tie it off and use the fishing line to attach berries, cones, and whatever else she had collected. At the top, below the hook part, she’d tie a big red bow. She’d fidget and fuss with it until it was just the way she wanted it, and then she’d hang it on the front door. It was beautiful!!!
Diane Gosheff
My cousin Marcia and I loved anticipating and planning for Christmas when we were 9 and 10 in 1954. Normal life did not include frequent trips to stores like Target where the kid expects and receives toys/trinkets/ all during the year. We received gifts on our birthdays and at Christmas. Turkey dinner was kept sacred for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did not have a turkey sandwich 7 days a week because the whole bird had to be roasted to eat it. Now I am always tired of turkey – get through it for Thanksgiving but want steak for Christmas. This year it is Lasagna. That particular Christmas, we opened our gifts at our Nana’s, where Marcia lived with her widowed mother and Down Syndrome (Mongoloid in 1954) brother. These packages were from family. I opened my Santa presents at home with Mom and Dad. Then we went to Nana’s for presents from her and the aunts/uncles, and Christmas dinner. That morning, we finished with the gifts and scampered down the hall to Marcia’s bedroom to play with our dolls. My aunt Jenny called out, “Girls, come back. Santa left special gifts for you in the back of the tree. I just found them.” Rushing back down the hall, we almost knocked each other down squeezing “first” through the doorway into the living room. Two tall cylinder packages in Santa paper lay side by side under the tree. A letter was attached. “Dear Diane, I’ve been watching you this year and know what you and Marcia did in the bathroom. You are to put your gift into the bathroom cabinet and never again hide the toilet paper every time you go into the bathroom”! Marcia’s letter was a repeat of mine. We hung our heads, glanced at each other, and raised our eyes slightly to see Aunt Jenny and our mothers’ faces. Not a pretty sight. We opened the gifts slowly and carefully, folding the red and green paper and placing it reverently on the floor. With huge brown eyes and open mouths, we looked in wonder at our gifts. Four rolls of toilet paper for each of us to deliver to the bathroom. For months, we thought it was funny to hide the toilet paper on the roll so the next person to use the toilet would be without paper and have to get up, go to the cabinet and find a roll. We did this deed and left the bathroom every time laughing. We often snuck up to the closed bathroom door to hear the exclamations from an aunt or uncle or grandmother when they realized the toilet paper roll was empty. After Christmas Day 1954, we never again hid the toilet paper.
This is one of many great Christmas moments that I hold dear 63 years later.
Judi
What rascals you were! It was handled so cleverly! Thank you for sharing it with us…
Judi
I missed days 5 & 6, traveling to the beach and recuperating. So, for day 7. The leftover creeping cedar Mom used to on the stone mantle of the fireplace. I remember red candles up there, and my stocking, hung with care. Look at that – I’m a poet. Mom would add pine cones and sprigs of berries and I thought it looked beautiful!
Diane Gosheff
Judi and Beverly, I’ve enjoyed your Christmas descriptions so much. Reading them quietly goes well with relaxing in my chair and thinking how wonderful this season is. Thank you for such colorful visions of the Christmases past. Merry Christmas to you both. I hope the New Year is filled with good health, a deep joy of life, love, and laughter (yes, please some laughter in 2018).
Diane Gosheff
The descriptions of Christmas trees reminded me of this story: When I was very young – maybe 5, 6, or 7, my mommy (that’s what I called her then) and I would go to the Christmas tree place and pick out our tree. I remember this day vividly. We looked at every tree that was the right size for our small living room .Mommy wanted a pretty, branchy tree but it was not the one for me. “Nope” I said. I grabbed her hand and dragged her over to a small scrawny tree, with a limp top, and strange arrangement of limbs. “This is the one I want, Mommy, please, please.” She glanced at it and said, “But, Diane, it’s branches are not as full as the other tree; it really isn’t a pretty tree at all. Let’s get the bushy one.”
“No, Mommy, we have to get this tree. It isn’t very pretty and no one else will buy it. The tree will not have a home for Christmas and will stay right here all alone while the other trees are bought. I want this one, You can fix it up so it looks pretty.” And, God Bless my sweet mother, she bought it. At home, she spent several hours taking a branches from full areas and attaching them with tape to skimpy areas. Patient and determined to make that sad little tree into a glorious Christmas delight. And it was a beautiful tree with all of its large colorful bulbs, silver tinsel (remember putting strand after strand on the tree), and shiny red, blue, green, and gold ornaments. A lovely tree and a beautiful mother-how fortunate I am.
Judi
That’s a beautiful story, Diane. Thank you for sharing it with us. You are indeed blessed.
Judi
Christmas Eve – This is when all the action took place. Christmas Eve day is when my father went out into the woods and cut us down a tree. It was never put up before Christmas eve. He put it in the holder, which was a piece of 4 x 6, about a foot long, with a hole chiseled in the middle, and brought the tree into the living room. My parents left it to Santa to decorate. Like he didn’t have enough to do… The dining room table was piled up with wrapped gifts for my cousins, my brother and sister-in-law and their four children. They would all be here in the Catskills for Christmas. With any luck at all we would have snow, so Santa could deliver on time. Daddy would build a fire in the fireplace and I would put out the cookies and milk for Santa, and carrot sticks for the reindeer. Before bed I would get some eggnog and cookies, then get tucked in. It took forever to get to sleep! I mean, forever! At first light I would yell to my mother, “Is it morning yet?” and she or my father would answer, “Not yet…” Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Christmas morning…