Christmas, 1941, I was four. We hung up our stocking, usually the biggest one we could find, and, we usually each got a small gift, two or three pieces of candy, a few nuts, and two or three apples and oranges. We so looked forward to Christmas. Daddy and Mama had gotten some candy shaped like a corn cob. Daddy teased me that Santa might bring me a corn cob. Christmas morning finally came. We had a big fire going in the fireplace. I sat down in front of the fire place and excitedly started emptying my sock. My one gift was a doctor’s kit, next, I took out my apples and oranges, nuts, and candy. When I came to the piece of candy shaped like a corn cob, remembering Daddy’s warning about getting a corn cob, I looked at it, said, “cob” and threw it in the fire.
—Roy Pipes
I hope you enjoyed Roy’s Christmas memory. I’m sure his family laughed often through the years as they told the story of the candy corn being thrown into the fireplace.
Over the weekend I heard the girls talking about some of their Christmas memories. Even though they’re twins they don’t always remember the same things so they enjoy hearing each other’s stories.
Last night’s video: The Christmas Barn 4.
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I was a fool & blurted out my husband’s gift right in front of him. Then I cried. I surprised him with a puppy & kept that a secret from everyone, but my girls had gotten suspicious & figured it out. We were chatting while playing with the puppy. My daughter said she figured it out when she asked me if I wanted to go in on her gift for him & I responded, “No, I got something bigger & my money is all gone”. I couldn’t remember the conversation & looked at her quizzically, trying to remember the gift she wanted me to go in on. Then, my big, stupid mouth said, “What gift? Oh, the meat slicer.” My kids looked at me like I was the lamest person in the world & then they all started laughing. But I cried. I was so ashamed of myself. Here, they had suspected the gift of a puppy & kept it to themselves to not ruin their father’s gift & I go and blurt out their surprise. The real kicker is that this happens to my husband concerning his gifts often. My older daughter has done the very same thing to him on several other Xmas; handing him the gift & saying things like, “okay, now open your wallet….” The problem is that my husband works so much (& weird hours) that he is not home often & we just carry on. We kind of ‘forget’ when he is sitting there & act like we are in our own little 3-girl-world. He just laughed. Then, they had to all make a big deal out of when gifts were opened of course. Did I mention that i live in a house of chop busters????
I was blessed with a KitchenAid mixer, something I have been pining after for many years. I have been using a 1960s Sunbeam & its getting tired. I bake A LOT! My daughter also got me a beautiful, handmade sourdough bread knife & sauerkraut stomper. My other daughter got me a Swiffer. I knew I was going to have a puppy piddling on my floor in the near future & requested a Swiffer. She looked at me like I was insane, but got it anyway. After the puppy came, she understood & thought it was funny! My family sure knows me! I have been treating myself to some time to re read the Little House on the Pairie series & enjoying the chapters with the Christmas scenes in them. So simple & yet so joyful!
Never heard of ‘Christmas Corn’.
Now, my mother had gone to town & came home with a small bag of candy corn in the fall. She had helped plow the field as a 5 year old, by driving the tractor. Diligently watching. Tilling of the soil, the sowing of seed and the harvesting.
She decided she was going to multiply her assests. In the corner, she broke up the clumps, put in the ‘seed’ corn as papa had done, watered it, then waited. It took a few months before reality set in. Of the bag of candy corn, she had two pieces to eat and the rest was planted.
Tipper,
Santa left a lump of coal in my stocking as punishment, but I needed the heat!
Going to try for two lumps next Christmas.
Love the beautiful Christmas Cards. Really enjoyed this story. That’s about all we got in our stocking was an apple and orange and the long peppermint stick. We looked forward to it.
That’s a cute story! Never heard of the candy corn cob. I’ve eaten my share of candy corn but, it seems like you never see it until the Fall of the year around Halloween and boy is it sugary sweet. Tipper, I also have enjoyed the Christmas cards you have put up on these posts. I love looking at all the details of them and last night’s ending to The Christmas Barn was wonderful! Thank you!!
I have already commented but do not remember hanging any stockings as a child. I have had many enjoyable Christmas but in some ways not so many now with so many family members missing that have passed on. Two involved my daddy, he was sick and out of work once when I was a child but had got home just before Christmas and my Aunt giving me a full box of shotgun shells(first full box I ever had) and another one of Daddy having a heart attack in early November and being told he didn’t have enough good heart left to live. He got to come home for a couple of days at Christmas before going back to hospital . He lived for 7 more years. One more memory of my daughter when 2 years old sitting in a cardboard box playing with a burned out camera flash cube ignoring her Christmas toys.
When I was still at home in Tennessee with my family, Mom and Dad talked of getting fruit for Christmas. Dad said he might get a cheap knife now and then and Mom said she might get a small doll.
My 1st Christmas memory was on our back screened in porch Mom and Dad put up a live tree
and it had the old fashioned lights on it. I use a string of those light to this day for night lights.
I love Christmas. Thank you so very much for sharing your memories.
For Christmas we would get an orange, some mixed nuts in the shells, and some sticks of candy. We would be very excited because we only had oranges and mixed nuts at Christmas time. We gathered black walnuts and hickory nuts and grew apples and pears in our orchard for the rest of the year.
my mother used to talk about getting christmas in a stocking just like this one. she was sad that the stocking, while still present, had become just a decorative afterthought to the “real stuff” by the time i came along.
I love the vintage Christmas cards at the start of each post, and I’ve enjoyed reading the tales of long-ago Christmases.
I wondering when people began making actual Christmas Stockings? I must have been in 1st grade when I first received one at a school Christmas celebration.
It’s time for Happy New Year wishes. I hope 2023 brings everyone health and happiness and that God will Bless and keep you all!
Still freezing here in Florida -3rd day and one to go. Forgot to turn the hose onto the garden fencing. Tonight is our last chance to make an icicle fence for the kids. We don’t get many chances to make our back yard a wonderland of ice so tonight is it. We stayed up last night until 1:30 AM playing games with my brother and his wife. Even the 7 yo stayed up playing his electronic games and he didn’t fall asleep while we laughed and had a great game night – eating cookies, cake, ham and all the leftovers. It was a wonderful time and exactly what we all enjoy most – being together and laughing. We are blessed. My granddaughter and her family are leaving today for the mountains – hoping for a white Christmas for their kids. I don’t think they will be disappointed this year!
I enjoyed this funny story. We would go and eat dinner with my paternal grandparents ever Sunday after the morning church service. Grandmother seemed to always have some candy corn that I would eat some of while there. Because of the sugar in the candy and my teeth being bad (baby teeth and no money for a dentist) I came home many times with a toothache. Most often hers was the kernel type instead of the cob candy. Now it seems like I only see this candy at Halloween.
For my first Christmas, my mother bought a stocking and had my name written on it. For the past 69 Christmases, that stocking has held delightful little gifts on Christmas morning.
I wonder if he thought it was a real cob instead of candy? I wonder about things like that. It must be my age.
I have really enjoyed the Christmas Cards you have put on every post through this Holiday season! I recognize their style from when I was a child, a long time ago. They probably have a name, but I don’t remember it.
I can’t wait to hear this one. My Hubby is out of town and loves to hear these with me…we both relate to what you read and it does conjure up memories of our past. Also, I did make those wonderful sausage balls and gosh were they a hit. My difference was the dip. I did not have the apple jelly to use but I do have different jellies to chose from and I chose Fox Grape Jelly. Fox grapes grow wild in some areas of Florida and I had that on hand. The biggest surprise was what was in the dip and after repeating myself over and over they finally believed me that mustard was the kicker. I have a feeling that I will be repeating that one again for New Years Day. God Bless