My favorite Christmas tree is a real cedar tree. When I was a kid we always went out behind the barn where lots of wild cedar trees grew & cut down 2: one for our house & one for granny who lived across the road. It didn’t matter much to us if they were perfectly shaped. It was the smell that filled our houses that gave so much pleasure. Of course the decorations were mostly home made. One of our favorites was elbow macaroni that we kids painted using spray paint & any other paint we could get our hands on. We ran red packaging ribbon through the holes in the macaroni & made our own stringers. Of course, we did the popcorn stringers too. Then everything else was a mish-mash of construction paper ornaments to sycamore balls covered with tin foil.
We didn’t have any lights until we were almost teenagers. We would not have had them then, except for the fact that Daddy was a really good shade-tree mechanic. So he could usually fix anything that went wrong on our old 1962 chevrolet car (always just called “the chevy 2” by us). Anyway he usually got the parts from a local junk yard. I don’t remember what was wrong with the car that time, but when Daddy went to the junk yard the owner had just gotten hold of a wrecked “chevy 2” & wanted to sell the entire car. Daddy must have thought the price was good because he bought it. Of course it had to be towed to our house from the junk yard & one of Daddy’s brothers did that right away. But no one even thought about what might be in the trunk of the car. Well, as soon as they got it in our yard us kids had to explore every inch. Someone opened the trunk & lo & behold it was filled with strands of Christmas lights & other store bought ornaments! The lights all worked! And there was so many that we had lights on our tree & Granny’s tree & just enough to do one little bush by our front porch. We didn’t get many presents from Santa that year but we didn’t mind because to us the lights were ENOUGH! It was a MERRY CHRISTMAS for all!
—Donna N
I hope you enjoyed Donna’s memories as much as I do. Her family finding Christmas decorations in the trunk of the car brought back so many good memories for me.
I’ve always been one who enjoyed getting hand-me-downs or other discarded items from folks. Seems like someone was always donating stuff to us when I was a girl. I so enjoyed digging through the items to see what treasures were there. It was especially exciting if there was an older girl in the household who donated to us.
I felt the same way when Chatter and Chitter were little. I adored getting hand-me-downs for them. I remember one Christmas, it may have even been their first Christmas, Miss Cindy brought several boxes of clothing a friend had given her that had belonged to his granddaughters.
Miss Cindy and I set in the living room looking through the boxes by the light of the Christmas tree. The clothing was almost all too big for the girls, but I kept it all and each year as Chatter and Chitter grew we got to dig into those boxes of clothing to see what new things they could wear. It was like having a clothing store in the closet.
Last night I started reading a new Christmas book, The Homecoming. You can find the first video here.
A few folks have asked about the daily Christmas readings I’ve been doing. You can find them here.
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Oh, those memories flooding back again! Thank you Tipper and BP&A readers for the memories. My Papa would hitch up the trailer to the tractor and Gramma and me would climb in the trailer and off to the woods we would go in search of the perfect Christmas tree (normally a cedar) for the house. What fun it was! When we got back to the house, we would put on her strings of big old colored bulbs and she also had the bubble lights that clipped on to the limbs. All us kids would sit and watch them for hours and talk about Santa and what we wanted for Christmas. Then the old glass and mercury ornaments and of course the silver icicles!!! It was the most beautiful tree, so plain and so simple and so perfect, even if it wasn’t.
We used to buy junk boxes at auctions. It was always a treat and an adventure to find out what was inside. There was always some sort of buried treasure inside. 🙂
Yes, my ‘big’ brother and I used to hike through the deep snow to find the perfect tree as well, thanks for sparking that memory. My little sister and I used to put on our crinolines and make a magic wand with tin foil and cardboard and dance around the Christmas tree, it was magic! Such good memories.
This year I will be spending Christmas and making memories, with all my grandchildren, I am truly blessed.
I love your story reading, thank you
We always had a blue spruce for a Christmas tree. My dad liked how there was space between the branches for the ornaments to hang. My friend called it a Charlie Brown tree because it was so skinny, but I didn’t care, it was my dad’s favorite so it was just fine with me!
Of hand-me-downs, cedar Christmas, and family memories . . .
I’m the 9th and last child and 6th son in our family. My brothers were all older than me, with the twins being closest in age at 10 years older; the other 3 were 18, 16, and 14 years older. Most hand-me-downs happened with the oldest boys, but I can remember being embarrassed to be dressed in knickers (knickerbockers?) in the 1950s. These were so unpopular among the boys that they weren’t either worn out or damaged beyond repair. I think they were originally purchased about 1930. I do remember being given nice shirts by older brothers they had grown tired of wearing after I grew big enough to wear their sizes.
Our Christmas trees were cedars collected from woods close enough to the house to drag them home. I was a teenager – maybe late teenager – before I remember buying a tree from a lot. Our house had no central heat; we heated with coal-fired fireplaces and, later on, a Siegler oil heater that did a great job of heating 1 room. At least we didn’t have to bring in coal or wood to feed it or carry out ashes it made.
Cedars do dry out quickly. Pa was always fearful of the Christmas tree being too close to the fireplace. They were always placed in the living room which went unheated most of the time; but during the holidays, we lit a coal fire in the fireplace. I can remember a fireplace screen being placed in front of the tree and presents to block any sparks that the fireplace might belch up.
Being so much younger, I have little memory of what my older siblings got for Christmas. I remember getting a ‘big’ present from Santa and smaller ones that usually included new clothes from others. Aunt Mary could be counted on for a box of Life Saver candy wafers that were packed in a foil covered box hinged to look like a book. When I was about 7, Santa brought me a Flexi Racer (like a Flexible Flyer snow sled but with wheels). When I was 9, I got a new bicycle gifted by my brother Charles.
We continued to gather at the family home even after we married and moved out on our own. The crowd grew larger by the year. I can remember counting 52 noses one Christmas, noses no more distantly related than first cousins and in-laws. My youngest sister tried to continue the tradition of family gatherings after my mother died, but the group dwindled year by year. Now, there are but 3 of us siblings remaining. Their children have grandchildren who don’t believe the Christmas tales we share with them.
I love Christmas and I have NEVER, EVER seen an ugly Christmas tree!
Donna’s Christmas tale was delightful and I thoroughly enjoyed the story about the hand-me-downs. Those are the kind of Christmas stories we always remember instead of junk from the big box stores.
I too remember the days of youth when my father and I would tramp all over our 100 acres in West Virginia hunting for the perfect tree, most times a fir as we had very few cedars. I was so excited to decorate with construction paper rings glued together, popcorn strings and if lucky that year some silver icecycles. Looking back, the hunt with my Father and the time spent with each other was the most precious, as a child I did not fully understand that. We were very poor but we had LOVE, oranges, nuts and a peppermint stick always around Christmas.
Hi Tipper- I really enjoyed today’s post. Last year we got an incense cedar and it was beautiful. Sunday we cut down a gorgeous Douglas-fir tree and it might be the prettiest Christmas tree we’ve ever had. Merry Christmas everyone and God bless.
What a wonderful story and all the posts bring back memories to me also. When I was really young mama wanted one of those artificial silver trees and we had one of those rotating lights at the bottom next to it that showed red, green, yellow and blue. Well, that just wasn’t Christmas to daddy so from then on, he went and cut us a tree every year. I well remember some were cedar because of the particular smell. I also remember those big colored lights that would almost burn your finger if you touched them, but the lights seemed to enhance the smell of any type of tree he cut. Like Randy, my brother would shoot us some mistletoe out of a tree. Mama would cut some holly and put it on the mantel. I would make a star out of cardboard wrapped in tin foil for the top of the tree. One year she bought tinsel and wanted us to put one strand on the tree at the time. Well, when she left the room, we decided that was too much work, so we ended up throwing it on the tree. She didn’t say a word and then after Christmas we always kept it, so we had to take it all off. Daddy would make sure we had apples, oranges and tangerines and only at Christmas would he buy a big bag of chocolate covered peanuts and every single year until his health declined, for mama’s Christmas present he would always buy a bottle of Jergen’s lotion (the original kind and only kind there was at that time), and a box of chocolate covered cherries. For lots of us, memoires are all we have but oh don’t we treasure them so…
I so enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I have fond memories of Christmases like this when I was a little girl and could relate to almost all of the stories in the comments. There’s one Christmas in particular that stands out for me. It was hard times in Appalachia during WW II following the Great Depression. We were lucky if we got as much as an orange, a stick of candy, and some nuts in our stocking. There was no money for toys. I remember the postman delivering a package from my aunt who was living in Ohio. She had sent us some toys … all used, of course. Inside that box was a little red accordion! Oh, what joy that little accordion brought to me and made my heart sing! My aunt is no longer with us, but she’ll always have a special place in my heart for the love, generosity, and kindness she showed us kids, not just at Christmas but her entire life. I loved her so.
We to had a cedar tree for Christmas. We go on the hill back of our house and try and pick the perfect one. It seem like we never could get one that was perfect because one side or the other would be fuller or lop sided or something wrong with it. We would get one close. It make our wood house smell so good. We get things out in the woods and wrap tin foil around it to decorate. We might have one present under the tree. It was mostly an apple or orange and candy stick. It was ok with us though, we didn’t care.
Morning, Tipper. What a sweet story! Christmas is the favorite holiday of a lot of us, and I love listening to how others celebrate and decorate theirs. I may even snatch someones ideas, lol. On a side note, I was watching your blog yesterday where you were looking at Christmas decorations and was amazed and blown away at the things Granny has knitted or crocheted!! They are beyond lovely!! Your mother is one very talented lady! Please tell her I said so. I hope she continues to do well. I’m pretty sure now her radiation is over she will begin to have more energy. I did after my radiation. God’s blessings on you and your family and all your subscribers.
Thanks Donna for such a lovely Christmas story. Nothing will quite ever live up to those humble Christmas memories of long ago. We always headed out with Dad to chop down the best looking tree we could find. I always saw prettier ones, but I suspect he wanted some of the lovelies to grow tall and proud to grace the mountain farm. We would put the tree up facing the warped side against the wall. Mom had those lovely bubbling warm lights that gave the entire room a special glow. When we were really small we picked out one choice for Christmas. Later years, I suppose things were more prosperous as we would receive more than one. One of my very favorite was a little Native American doll with matching white moccasins. This was especially nice since I had grown gangly and older, and I would not ask for a doll. I loved it, as I had quite an obsession with Native Americans on hearing I may have descended from one they called Nickiti. Almost more pleasing was a trek to my beloved grandparents home where all tree decorations were homemade, even popcorn balls in brightly colored paper. To this day, I would still love to unwrap a coloring book, as in those days that was a common gift. Everything was filled with magic in those days, and I hated to mature and lose all that magic. I try to give that to grandchildren, because I remember how it clings to your mind and molds your every step along the road of life.
I have such fond memories of getting our Christmas tree. It was always my dad and me that went to pick them out. He and I decorated the tree and one year he hung lights across our front porch. They were those big multicolored outdoor lights from years ago. I was so excited. We kept them up til New Years and on New Year’s Eve we would go out on the porch and bang on pots and pans at midnight.
Laurie
Hi Tipper
As our other’Acorn’ just wrote about Randy’s comments and I am new to this blog but his comments go straight to my heart, I can relate so much, there was a time I absolutely loved the Christmas Season especially when I had our two children and most of my family were still here, I am so sentimental this time of year, Victoria, my daughter who is 25 loves this time of year, she got our tree delivered yesterday, it’s an artificial one from Walmart but she is really happy with it, she had to take it out of the box right away and see how tall it was and it’s a beauty, Michael and my husband enjoy Christmas too but when it comes to me, it’s a different story, put me back to the day when we had that little tree someone cut down, a few decorations and whatever we found to put on it, the only time we really had fruit was in our Daddy’s old work sock, not like today, our Christmas stockings back then were my Daddy’s work socks, we didn’t have much but still it was a happy and magical time, and can go on and on, but I have to make the best of it especially for Victoria, to me, I have lost most of my family and it took the joy right out of me, I can only sum it up this way when my favourite uncle, Daddy’s identical twin said and I never forgot it. “Christmas is alright when Everything is alright”, I don’t mean to sound so down and take my family’s joy away but also when they say there is an empty chair at my table, so true, I find Christmas to be about the hardest holiday to endure without them, I didn’t realize this but it seems like in a blink of an eye it changed for me so yes, Randy I can certainly relate, I will go through all the motions and put a smile on my face but no one will ever know. Sorry, I rambled on Tipper, but there you have it, I love to see everyone enjoy the Season and of course as I got older , I comfort myself with the real meaning of Christmas and my only Hope.
What a wonderful story !!! I loved it and the story last night & everyone’s stories in the comments!!! Thank you !!! Love & blessings to you all !!!
Lovely. Simply lovely. Thank you, Tipper, for sharing Donna’s words. And even more, thank you for offering your take on hand-me-downs. Like you, I see those gifts as expressions of love. Wearing a hand-me-down coat somehow kept me warmer than a store-bought one.
Today’s post is one of my favorites. What a great surprise for those kids, finding lights and decorations in the trunk of that junk car! I love Christmas. Celebrating the birth of Christ is what Christmas is to me, but I also enjoy baking cookies with my Mom, wrapping presents and watching the joy of the recipients as they unwrap, and of course, the food. We don’t have much family left either, but Mom and I, brother and sister in law, niece and her husband and little boy always get together for the holidays. We do have so many good memories of days gone by, when my Grandma was alive. About 30 of us would squeeze into her small home for Christmas dinner. She made the turkey and a few sides, and we all brought sides, desserts, cookies, and candy. I pray that all would feel the love I felt during those times!
My parents always cut a cedar tree for Christmas. The tree had weak branches that couldn’t hold much weight. That was a good thing as we only had a few homemade ornaments made from Prince Albert cans, silver chewing gum wrappers, and popcorn. Mom never left the big colorful lights turned on very long. She kept her hand close to the plug as the lights heated up and released the scent that has been embedded in my memory for a lifetime. Dad was a worry wart when it came time to heat the house during the winter. Most of the time we heated with a pot-bellied stove filled with coal that got so hot the pipes would be cherry red. We never went to bed until he was sure the stove and Christmas tree had cooled.
My Mammaw and Pappaw on my mother’s side always had a cedar tree for Christmas. I can remember helping to decorate it. They had those large bulbs, like you made the ornaments from, for lights. Pappaw always had to have “tinsel” or “icicles” to throw on the tree. Whenever I smell a cedar tree, it evokes those memories. Sometimes when I peel and taste certain oranges, it reminds me of Christmas morning and getting our stockings. Isn’t it amazing how certain scents can bring memories?
Most clothing I had was hand-me-downs, but it never bothered me…except for ‘Bobby socks. (The elastic that kept them up was too old.) Mum always bought new underwear & shoes once a year.
There was one Christmas I was 9 & 1/2 and sis just turned 5. We were both given 2 new identical dresses under the tree. One was frilly chocolate brown with pink polka dots. Very fancy, but I hated it. It had short sleeves and the elastic band made my arms itch. The other dress was a pink cotton with blue trim on the bodice.
Didn’t really care for the color but I could wear it comfortably. Mum was perturbed about me not liking the brown dress but she packed it away for sis to wear at future time.
I remember a lot of people in our area using cedar trees for Christmas trees when I was young; that’s all my best friend’s family ever used. This was before the days when Christmas trees had become big business and cedars are plentiful around here. A lot of older folks also used to decorate with running cedar as well.
Speaking of hand-me-downs, one of my favorite stories comes from when my brother bought his first car. It was an orange Honda hatchback, about the size of a pregnant roller skate, and it had an 8-track cassette player in it. A couple of 8-track tapes had been left in the car, and one of them was from the bluegrass gospel group that our dad had once played music in!
We almost always had cedar Christmas trees, though they are not common on the Cumberland Plateau in KY. We never thought of even looking for a pine, which are common there. The smell is really nice. And about parents sacrificing for their children, that’s what loving parents do and think it unremarkable which is itself the hallmark of love. I have concluded that whoever has loved well has lived well. But I can’t tell you if I have or not.
We couldn’t have cedar trees on our place when I was a child growing up. Daddy kept them all cut down and instructed all us kids to do the same if we encountered one! We had apple trees. Daddy said cedars caused rust on apples.
I had never seen a rusty apple and didn’t necessarily believe it but I did as I was told. In later years I learned that Daddy was right, that there was a disease carried by cedar trees that causes apples to yield a less than desirable harvest (I would have said ugly fruit but that might be confused with ugli fruit which is a type of citrus). I don’t have apple trees here but I still cut every cedar as I run across them. Still doing what Daddy taught me even after almost half a century.
One of my all-time favorite memories is of Christmas lights too, tipper. My family didn’t have much, we never owned a house, always rented, we never celebrated birthdays, and would usually just get one gift each Christmas, a doll for Christmas, but it was a doll!!!! And I always remember the Christmas that we had the old-timey, big, (hot) colored, screw in bulbs wrapped around the square window in our front door. I remember coming home a couple of nights and seeing that window frame with the lights from afar and it felt like we were pulling into Santas house. It’s amazing how somethings so simple can bring you such joy! And to think, 50 years later, it’s still bringing me the same joy through its memory.
Sweet Christmas memories from Donna, you and many of your readers. They all had some memories that I could relate to in someway from different times in my life. God has blessed us all in many ways with the joys of Christmas. I know some years our memories might be sad or difficult, but God got us through them all. He has still given us peace and joy in the good memories we do have of celebrating Christmas and for this I am very grateful.
I really enjoyed every single comment and the story you shared this morning, Tipper. It was all very heartfelt and jogged some memories for sure! I loved to go to church and sit as near the huge Christmas tree as I could with its white lights and beautiful white lace hand crocheted ornaments! I thought it was the prettiest tree I ever saw every single year! We would get a brown bag filled with an apple, an orange, a few nuts, foil wrapped chocolates and candy canes at church and I thought that was great! I remember laying under the Christmas tree and looking up all through the branches lit up and smelling it too!!! Christmas morning is 3 grandkids would wake up at 3 or so and find our new pajamas or night gowns and we would have ourselves a real dandy morning without adults until about 6 or 7 am. I remember a Bionic woman doll, HOLLY Hobbie lunch box, and a bumper pool table. I thought of CHITTER AND CHATTER AND IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT OF LITTLE SWEET PITTER AND PATTER COMING SOON!!! God bless you all this Christmas! I love old stuff. I have a glass collection that’s pretty wonderful! I have pieces from around 1900 and I have 2 Rapunzel DERMAY pieces (one pink, the other blue) that are exquisite. I love glass. Old clothes and old stuff (like me) is just better!!! Love and blessings to you all!!! Granny and the little mommas to be-extra prayers going up for ya!!!
For all of the younger members, Chevrolet actually made a Chevy II Nova back in the early years of the 60’s. She is probably referring to one of these cars and has nothing to do with the year. Back then, if a person had a little mechanical skill, a handful of a few certain size wrenches, screwdriver and pliers, he could just about rebuild a car.
My wife would tell of her Daddy coming home late at night and her and her 4 sisters going to their pasture very late at night or even the early morning hours (around midnight) with their Daddy and a flashlight to cut them a cedar tree for Christmas. He often worked 80 hours or more in a week. I am sure this was not done on a school night. Anyone remember getting their cedar Christmas tree by cutting the top out of a larger tree? Have you ever thought about how many trees were stolen off of other peoples property back then before today’s tree lots? Most of the landowners did not care. Back then cedar trees were a dime a dozen especially along a fence line.
Why not dye then dry the macaroni? String it, and hang it and then, after New Years, cook it and eat it. I’ve never seen or heard of it being done nor plan to do it but it ought to be easy enough.
Spray paint didn’t become a thing until the early to mid 70s. I was grown and leaving the decorating to the womenfolk by that time.
My Daddy bought a brand new Chevy 2 the first year they were made. Not a Nova, the only badge said Chevy II. It was a 2 door, pearl white with a 283 in it. A young man’s dream at the time. That was Daddy’s first new car and only the second he ever owned. The first was a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Aire 4 door. He never drove either of those cars, he had sons. He did drive his third car some but never got a drivers license. He died in 1974.
What sweet stories. Reminders of how grateful we need to be in all things. Enjoyed the reading last night. I remember as a very young girl I read a Readers Digest book at my Granny’s house with the story, our side of the mountain or Spencer’s mountain, (can’t remember the exact title), and it was by Earl Hamner. I remember how I would lay on my Granny’s itchy sofa and read that book. I didn’t take the book home, it was kept at her house and I read it when I visited her; which was very often. Such sweet stories in that book. Then later when I was a young mother that book became the wonderful family show; The Waltons, and my children loved watching the show every week. Thank you Tipper.
I remember cedar trees from Granpa Mauney’s farm when I was a kid. Still love cedar! Merry Christmas!!
One of my fondest Christmas memories involved strings of popcorn used as decorations, and sweetgum balls painted gold and silver, and chains made of various colors of construction paper. There were no lights and no tinsel, and very few presents under the little tree, but one small package with my name on it thrilled me beyond words. It was a harmonica. I knew Santa Claus hadn’t brought it. I had ordered it from an ad in a magazine or perhaps a comic book and had been waiting for it a long, long time. Mom had intercepted it and held it until Christmas since she knew Christmas gifts would be scarce at our house that year, 1944, with my dad in combat in Italy. The monthly allotment check for a private first class with three dependents was $120. Our church always handed each child a small bag of fruit, nuts and candy, and that helped make for a merry and memorable Christmas at our house.
I had a friend with a son a couple of years older than my 2. I loved receiving her hand me downs.
My dad had a good night job with benefits. However, there were 7 kids and my mom,who never learned to drive, was a stay at home mom. He had a day job as a carpenter as well.
One of his benefits was a paid vacation in which he could receive his vacation pay and still work. My parents never took a “vacation”. The money was used to pay bills. However, more than once, they used the vacation money for Christmas. Those were fantastic. I remember getting a little child’s ironing board and iron and a few books about horses. The ironing board and iron was my mom’s attempt to get her tomboy daughter interested in homemaking. The books were to feed my addiction to horses. I do remember how happy my parents looked when we were opening our presents. My parents sacrificed so much for our happiness.
I worked night shift six days a week for 25 years, working up to three weeks of paid vacation with 5 paid holidays. We were allowed to work all that time and get paid double, which I did. I had begun married life in debt and it took doing that for years before I reached “average”, all without government aid except for food stamps for one month. $14.00 if I recall correctly. About $71.00 in today’s money.
I grew up on a farm. We worked every day but Sunday and even then cows had to be milked, eggs gathered and animals fed. I was no stranger to long hours of hard work. Vacations were from books. I was in my 30s before I took one. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and I couldn’t wait to get back home and back to work. Watching my family enjoy an ordinary life was much more enjoyable to me than lying on some beach somewhere. And, yes, my family went on vacations without me while I worked to pay for it. I’m an odd one I suppose!
I have a 5 foot high somewhat skinny tree completely covered in mix matched ornaments. Many made by one of my four children. I have gifts from other people and a few from when I was a girl. I put the less than perfect ones in the middle or towards the back. I can’t bring myself not to put them up. I’m happy knowing they are there. Thanks for the story!
This story brings many memories back. My husbands tradition had always been a ceder tree. We continued that with our children. We never bought an ornament. They were either given to us or the kids made them, no two alike. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
My mom used to tell a story of when my brother and sister were little she had bought all their Christmas and hid it in the trunk of their car, which was an old unreliable. My daddy came across a better car they could afford and while she was gone with her mom and sisters somewhere he traded the car, with no idea the Christmas was in the trunk! By the time she got home the car lot was closed and they had to wait until they reopened on Monday, by that time their old car had been “sold” and nobody knew anything about any presents in the trunk. I always thought that was pretty low down whoever kept those toys out of the trunk of their old car.
Good morning!!! Love that Chevy 2 story. Of course it would be the children who explored every inch of that old car. I love a good box of stuff to go through, a yard/estate sale, or, best of all, a barn/farm sale!!!
Have a wonderful day!!!
When we were growing up I went hunting on Thanksgiving Day. My sister went out and cut a small cedar tree and decorated it. They usually dried out quickly because our only heat was a fireplace in the same room. After about a week she would get another one. She usually went through about four by the time Christmas came. She insisted on leaving it up until Mom or Dad made her put the decorations away usually into the New Year.
Jackie, I admire your sister’s persistence – four trees in one season! Since I had childhood memories of going into the woods with my dad to cut down a Christmas tree, I was determined to make that memory for my children. When we moved to Austin, Texas in 1976 there were still large tracts of undeveloped land in many parts of the city. Behind our home was just such a piece of land, covered – as the Texas Hill Country is – with scrubby live oaks and many, many “cedar” trees. They are really junipers but except for the blue berries on them they don’t look any different from the cedars of my Kentucky childhood. We went throughout the property looking for the perfectly shaped tree, cut it down, and dragged it home. Within a week our central heat had dried that tree out to the point where it felt more like a prickly pear cactus to anyone unfortunate enough to bump into it. Unlike your sister, I wasn’t about to remove the decorations and start over with a new tree. I wore heavy work gloves when the time came to remove the ornaments and lights from the tree after Christmas. I don’t know if the experience created the warm memories I intended, but the next year my children begged for one of the “soft” trees for sale at the Christmas tree lots.
AWESOME…love your reads. Can’t wait for the next one. Praying for Granny and you guys and the ‘undone’ one…(babies). God Bless
I too remember remember always cutting down an eastern red cedar tree for our Christmas tree. There was a large female holly tree on our neighbors property and I would break small branches of it with the red berries to use for decorations. Back then neighbors didn’t care if their neighbors did things like this. After I got older but still a kid, I would shoot mistletoe out of trees. Mother had a string of the old time large bulb Christmas lights, some ornaments and strings of some type of foil to wrap around the tree and something to hand on the branches that was suppose to look like ice sickles. Everything but the tree would be saved for the next year. I loved the way the house would smell of cedar at Christmas time. We never got many gifts for Christmas, one of my best Christmas was when I was about 12 years old, and Daddy got to come home after being in the hospital in time for Christmas. There was no money for presents that year but my aunt bought my sister and me one present, I asked for a full box of shotgun shells. That was the first full box (25 shells) I ever had, up until then I bought them 5 at a time, Back then store owners would break a box and sell individual shells for 5-10 cents a piece. I have always thought a homemade gift was better than store bought gift because someone took the time to make it for me, to me a homemade gift comes from the heart. As a kid, I wore a lot of hand me down clothes from an older cousin. He and his best friend were killed in a wreck on August 3, 1965 when they were 15 years old on their way to work at a peach orchard at Greer, SC. He was more like a brother to me than a cousin. Tipper , Matt and the other family members are in for a real treat with the new babies next year but I know they will be some sadnesses this year without Miss Cindy, I will be praying for you. We no longer decorate or do anything for Christmas after my wife, mother, grandmother died except exchange a few gifts with my son and grandsons and put up a small artificial tree. The few family members still left of my wife’s family do get together for a meal and exchange a gift with one another. No other ones left in my family. With so many family members that have now passed on, a lot of the joy and happiness of past years is no longer there.
Randy, I just want you to know that I really appreciate all of your stories that you share. You are one of the many ‘acorns’ I look forward to hearing from as you allow us to know you and your family through your comments.
Christmas has never been the same for us once my husband’s mother passed on at Christmas time and after our son left us to be in the military. The holes that are left sometimes are deafening.
Our son now has a family of 8 – but they live very far away and they are so busy with their lives that there is not much contact. We are lucky if we get a Christmas card with a family photograph. And we don’t always get one ; /
We are so thankful to our Heavenly Father for giving us the ability to pray for them and knowing He hears our prayers and keeps them close to Him, guiding them all to be with Him in heaven forever.
Randy, I just wanted you to know how much I care about you sharing Your stories because it touches me when I read them.
Blessings to you.
I appreciate your kind words. I realize I comment and write too much and tell myself I need to stop, but turn right around and continue to do it. As for family , my parents were poor ( Daddy only had a poor 8th grade education before dropping out of school to help his sharecropper Daddy. He never worked jobs that paid much more than minimum wage. We always managed to have the bare necessities but very little for our wants. My parents were good Christian God Fearing parents that took us to church anytime there was church service. Everything I have wrote could also be said about my wife’s family. I dearly loved all of them. Take this as a warning, you said I was an acorn, you do know an acorn could be considered an oak tree nut. Calling me a Nut would be a compliment!
I am quite around strangers, but once I get comfortable with you, Look Out, I will talk your ears off. I appreciate the members of the blog putting up with me and think of them as online friends and family. I just say I am a country boy/man nobody.