Steve and Tipper
We had a wonderful Christmas! I hope you did too. Granny got to come to Christmas dinner at our house. Everyone, including Granny, was thankful she felt up to coming.
Truly the reason for the season is the birth of our Savior and I tried harder than ever before to remember that this year. I started studying the biblical account of Christ’s birth the first day of December. I enjoyed it so much that I plan to do it every year.
If you were fortunate to have a happy childhood the memories of family fellowship at Christmastime fills the event with nostalgia. Those feelings leave many longing to go home for Christmas. Sometimes we can go, sometimes we can’t make the trip, and sometimes the place and the people are no longer there.
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is a song that captures that desire very well. Several years ago when the girls and Paul filmed the song for Christmas I researched the history of it and was surprised by what I found.
The song was written by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent. The lyrics became famous when Bing Crosby recorded it in 1943.
Since the release was during WWII the song instantly became tied to those serving far away for the good of us all but wishing they were home for Christmas.
From the History Daily website:
“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” was written well into World War II, when an estimated 16 million Americans (or 11% of the population) were serving in the armed forces. There was hardly a home in the country that didn’t have a conspicuously empty place at the dinner table during the holiday season, and the loneliness of being separated during Christmas was universally felt. The melodic longing of a man stuck far away from home and hoping (though not optimistically) to return for Christmas spoke not only to the soldiers serving on the front lines but their loved ones on the home front as well.”
I hope you enjoyed the song and and I hope you were able to go home for Christmas even if it was only in your dreams of precious memories.
Tipper
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Beautifully done.⭐️
So very happy to hear Granny came and enjoyed her visit with family. Thank You Jesus!
Love to hear the girls sing. I can play an instrument but I cannot sing. Have a blessed Sunday. I am glad Granny got to spend Christmas with all of you.
Granny is a beautiful gift in herself! I loved seeing her looking so well in the pic that was shared. PRAYERS CONTINUE… my sister and I lived separately and when she moved out of state I did not always see her…. so this heart tugs and brings tears often. Also, I lost a young uncle to WW 2 so I never got to meet him. it makes me think of his last Chrstmas spent overseas and never before away from home and hearth. What talent I hear in this version! Thanks for sharing. Con tinued prayers.
So glad our prayers were answered and Granny got to enjoy the day!
PRAISE GOD!!
Said prayers for family but mostly for Granny to feel well enough to be with the family. It makes my heart happy to know she got to spend time with the family.❤️
Love to all and a Blessed New Year!
It was a fantastic Christmas here with family! We did our usual Christmas morning presents, brunch, and later our household only Christmas supper. I am so thankful you guys had a wonderful Christmas, too, and that Granny was able to celebrate with everyone and make the trip up the hill! Merry Christmas again and here’s to a Happy New Year very soon, too!
Hi Tipper, I wanted to thank you for sharing the goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon recipe. my daughter is a vegetarian, I used her fake bacon to wrap them and it was a wonderful appetizer for our Christmas dinner. I love to find ways to include her in the meal(s). I have yet to find a smoked sausage made from plants; so your date recipe was a splendid addition to our holiday. Our son got his pigs in the blanket and she got the sweet dates! Thank you so much for sharing your life via youtube and this blog!
Sincerely, Kelly
Thank you! We had a great Christmas! Our sweet youngest turned one that day, and he was so full of smiles on Christmas Day that we all had a doubly wonderful day. The older kids say “he is the best Christmas present we ever got”.
Neither my husband or me could go to our families far away at Christmas, but we have made our family here too with our children and so we are home after all. ❤️
I hope everyone has had a blessed Christmas and that you all will have a very blessed new year. ❤️
Good morning, Tipper and Tipper fans! I’ll Be Home For Christmas is one of my favorite carols. It’s sad, but so poignant! I am moved to tears whenever I hear it, but I enjoy it just the same. There are millions of people around the world that couldn’t be home for Christmas for one reason or another, I was blessed to have my family. I come from a family of 8 kids and my parents so Christmas at our home was a super big thing. Gifts were opened one at a time, my dad sat on the floor and reached under for a gift and we all watched as that person opened their gift. We ewed and awed over it and moved on to the next gift. It took several hours and the memories are thankfully still in my 76 year old brain. I have carried on the tradition raising my three girls, and my husband loved it as well. Christmas music played in the background this year as always and whenever this song came on I longed for those younger days, and for my husband I lost to cancer 7 years ago, and my son in law we lost 8 years ago, both my parents. Aw yes, Christmas is a very emotional time of year both good and sad. I hope everyone had a great day and I am SO thrilled that Granny was able to be a full part of it, too. May God shower us all with His love and blessings!!
The ‘bestest’ news: Granny being well enough to come and enjoy Christmas with you all. 🙂 PTL. I enjoyed Paul and Katie & Corie doing ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas.’ That was me this year: going home to some of the Christmases of time past – as I strolled down memory lane. With most down with one of the viruses, and some having to work through the holidays, none of the family were able to spend Christmas together.
Beautiful! So thankful Granny and all of you got to be together this Christmas. What a treasure she is!
Loved the song. I’m so happy Granny made it to the festivities!
How lovely that Granny was able to be there with you all! Happy season to the Blind Pig family and followers 🙂
Tipper,
Our lives are so much alike only several hundred miles apart.
When I was little I got a baby doll too for Christmas plus a baby
carriage to put her in. Daddy got in the act and made me a cradle
to put the “baby” in. Her name was Connie. She and I just like your
baby doll had all sorts of adventures together.
Many years ago when I was an AP a student and I performed together
on stage at the High School “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” for the student
Christmas Band Concert. He played trumpet and I played piano. It was
so nice.
Please give Granny a big hug for her being able to enjoy Christmas Dinner
with her family. She is a strong lady and you are lucky to have her. So many
of our older family members aren’t with us now or aren’t able to enjoy the simple
things families do together.
Take care and have a great day.
Happy Holidays,
Kathy Patterson
I loved your blog today, I’m so glad Granny was able to celebrate with you. For some reason I can’t remember my family having big Christmas celebrations. Yes we got together but not anything like yours. I definitely have traditions that I observe every year. My immediate family is small only 7, and we had to get together 3 times because everyone couldn’t be here at the same time. It was still a great time. I always use my good china, cloth tablecloth and napkins. It helps me not to dwell on the sad times. I lost my Mom in 2020 and my Dad in 2017. My Dad sat down in his recliner 8 years ago today and fell into a coma, never to wake up. The next day with all his family around his bed, he passed away. My Mom started talking to him about how
Long she had love him and how much he meant to her and took his last breath. This year has been harder for me since if he were alive this would have been his 100 birthday on December 21. Maybe next year will be better.
2026 is going to be a good year!
Thank you and your family for being a friend to us all.
That is one of my favorite Christmas songs! Good job Paul, Corie and Katie! I can’t express how happy I am that Granny was able to come to your house for the holiday. It must have made your heart so happy! Blessings to all the Pressley family!
Such a lovely song, but also sad. I remember when my oldest brother was servicing in Vietnam not being able to come home for Christmas. I think every time we heard that song our hearts longed for him and so many we knew that was overseas. I know we also shed tears hearing it no matter where we were when we heard it. We were blessed that he and many others we knew did make it home when the war ended, but sadly others didn’t. This song also reminds me of when we first moved from WV to NC, my heart longed to go back home for Christmas. We were able to some years, but other years we couldn’t due to work, finances or weather conditions. I remember the years I couldn’t go I’d hear this song and teared up every time. Now I hear it and still long to go home, but not for a place, but for a moment in time when my parents, siblings and friends were all still together in a small town that I use to call home. The girls singing and playing along with Paul was beautiful and yes, I teared up as I listened to them perform it.
I so enjoyed this music and your beautiful family. I’ve been following y’all for a long time. I live right here in Hiawassee. all of my family is gone. I have two daughters and a grandson left but all of my elders are gone. cousins everybody. I am the elder of the family. Christmas is very hard for me because we grew up having these wonderful Christmases like your family where aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone was together and we had massive amounts of home cooking and gift-giving and it has never been the same since we’ve lost everyone. I try to make it as normal as possible but typically I am working every Christmas. I’m over 60 years old but I still have to work and it takes me away from home day and night to dog sit. but we still find time everyday to get together. have Christmas dinner open gifts Christmas Day things like that. but the one thing that I look forward to when my life is chaotic is watching your family because your family is what my family used to be. sometimes it’s so emotional and may have to turn it off and come back later because I miss it so much. I bet you and your wonderful husband at a book signing at Alexander’s and it’s so wonderful to know that there’s still people like y’all out here in this world. in a world that is so messed up nowadays. so cold and ugly. you guys are a light shining in the darkness and I thank God for y’all. Happy New Year! from Hiawassee
Jennifer Pidgeon Maid in the Mountains local cleanings available
Thankful Mrs. Wilson was able to be with everyone. Thanks for sharing with us all year and hoping for a peaceful new year.
The best blessings I have had this Christmas has been for all six of us to be together once again. We have had a great time, much of it outdoors in this very fine weather. Everything after just being together is icing on the cake. Of course I heard that from parents and grandparents but it is our time to live it now. I wonder, does the Lord feel that way about us, just longing to have us all there together and completed each to His own design? I think He does and I think our own longing for it is a reason to think He does to.
That song always made me sad, but this year especially. It was the first year our grandson and his family didn’t get to come home for any holidays. He is serving our country in the Army. Prayers were answered in granny getting to come home. Just love on her more. It is so true that home is never the same when you loose your parents. May have been gone since 2009. Our once home of all the brothers and sisters and children (Around 50) filled that home with so much love you could hardly contain it. Now, it is only in our dreams. Paul and the girls always do such a great job. I know you are so proud of them. Christmas is a time to really reflect on the year of all the love that Christ has poured out upon humanity and how little we deserve that love. In good times and bad he loves us and never leaves us. I pray that the coming year will bring many to him and that it will be filled with peace and health. God bless you all.
I guess the best part of Christmas was Granny being able to make it to supper. The picture of you & Steve was sweet. Listening to Paul & the girls was beautiful, they did a great job & the location was just perfect.
Merry Christmas to the Presley & Wilson Families.
As always praying for Granny.
I love this song, and the girls and Paul did a wonderful job performing it. It brings back memories of my childhood, and also of the time when my own children were little. We always had such precious Christmas celebrations. And now, with my hubby, and all of our children and grandchildren and our Mothers, we still make the most precious memories each year. I am so happy Granny was able to come for Christmas. Have a wonderful Sunday everyone.
Like you we have happy family gatherings and still continue to. We were so glad that my dad was able to make it to our house yesterday for our family Christmas dinner. He was pretty worn out and he fell asleep sitting on our couch, which made me happy with all of the grandkids playing and the conversation flowing, knowing he felt comfortable enough to take a nap. Time with him is very precious now.
Praise the Lord Granny felt up to it! That’s the most wonderful gift!
Tipper, did you have a certain study you used? I’m always interested! I belonged to a Jewish Bible study group. The traditions of our Father are wonderful. I told my husband I want to start celebrating those in the coming year and hopefully start a new tradition. Lord willing. There is such deep meaning and to know Jesus and His heritage in a deeper way is so wonderful.
I can only go home in my mind. Momma and Daddy are both gone home to Heaven. Heaven is our next home and the older we get the more we long for it.
Our youngest daughter gave me a little towel years ago that says “home is where your momma is”. That’s so true. I was both a momma’s and daddy’s girl. Momma was my best girlfriend and Daddy was my first love. I miss them terribly.
I remember having 5 uncles in Vietnam and how sad it was. Momma would send big care packages and she used popcorn for the packaging. We were so blessed all 5 made it home. Scars would last a lifetime, but our family was so grateful.
Thank you for sharing the beautiful song. Such talent and Katie’s fiddle made it extra special! So beautiful! Thank you for the history of it. I didn’t know that.
Glad Granny could enjoy Christmas. Christmas memories are special. We got one thing for Christmas and mine was a doll. Daddy cut timber and around Christmas , a lot of the time the weather was bad, money was scarce. We always had something. We was blessed with mama and daddy’s love.
Good Morning Tipper. It was such a blessing for Granny to get to enjoy Christmas with her family. The song always reminds me of my childhood and so many Christmases when Daddy was gone overseas with the Army. It made those times that he was home so much more precious. I was such a Daddy’s girl. Still am. I miss him so much. Anyway. I’m so happy to have you share your Christmas with us. I gotta go cry. I keep y’all and everyone here in my prayers. I love Y’all.
that’s a great picture of Steve and Tipper, thank you for the memories, of days gone by, when the world seem like it was a much better place, God bless you, thank you Tipper, for making the world a much better place
praise God, Granny got to come for Christmas, Hallelujah, I enjoyed the song, God bless the girls and Paul, all the Pressley and Wilson family in Jesus name
Thank you for the post. We were very fortunate growing up as kids in NH because we celebrated Christmas with my mother’s brother and his wife and their son and daughter. Our two families were so close we took vacations together. Each Christmas we would rotate what hose we would celebrate the opening up of gifts and the Christmas meal. The one Christmas I will never forget was the one where my uncle had bragged about the great deal he had gotten on his Christmas tree. Well it wasn’t that good of a deal because a couple of days after putting it up the needles started falling off. All you had to do was walk into the room where the tree was and you could hear the down pour of pine needles. By Christmas morning the tree looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. For us the first thing we did to celebrate the birth of Jesus was to attend the 7:00 AM mass at our church. Later on in my first marriage my wife and I attended midnight mass to celebrate His birth. As I’ve mentioned before while living in Lake Wales Florida Diane and I attended midnight mass to celebrate the reason for the season. I’m so glad that prayers were answered and Granny could attend the family celebration. Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.
That was beautiful Paul, Corie and Katie! Beautiful background for the performance! Maybe Donna’s home?
I’m so happy that Granny felt like joining the family for Christmas. God is good! Sending continued blessings to your family.
It was filmed At Donna’s 🙂
I am one of the fortunate ones to have many happy memories of family “get togethers” not only at Christmas but also at other times of the year. Now I’m the old one and usually spend Christmas Day visiting the graves of many of these family members. When I say family I am including my wife’s family, I loved all of them. No one has ever said “ I was in my right mind,” I am glad for the happy memories of family but instead of joy these memories are painful for me. I was at my sister in laws home Christmas Eve night with some others of my wife’s family, instead of the 25 members like it used to be to be there was only about 10. I went Christmas Day to visit my only sister in a long term care nursing home and the graves of the others including my wife and daughter. I told someone yesterday, the only present I want nowadays is TIME to be with my family and loved ones. I realize it more than ever how precious, important and valuable this Time is.