With Christmas coming up I’ve been thinking of some childhood memories involving this special holiday.
Gertrude Hale used to have a beautiful Christmas party every year. She put hundreds of candles all over the house and didn’t turn the lights on. Both my little brothers, Ken and Kevin, were candle obsessed as some little kids are.
One year at her party slowly but surely the house got increasingly darker and darker over the evening. Finally we realized that my brothers had gone around the house blowing every candle out. I wonder if we were ever invited back to that party?
The house is no longer there, but it was situated where the Catholic Church’s parking lot is now.
Once when we were leaving our house to go to some Christmas celebration my brother Kevin burned all of the hair off the front of his head by looking down into one of my mom’s tall jarred candles. I can still remember the horrible smell of burnt hair, and the way his hair – or lack thereof – looked afterward.
Mom and dad would take us shopping at Winn’s so we could pick out gifts for our brothers, our sister and mom and dad. I think we had a 25-cent limit for each person.
We would run around the store hiding our presents from each other. Mom was always afraid we were going to be arrested for shoplifting.
One thing that Winn’s always had in stock was a 25-cent piece of plastic dog poo. Kathy got one every year from one of us. Thank goodness she was a good sport about it. I wonder whatever happed to all that poo over the years. Knowing how sentimental my mom is, I will probably find a box of plastic dog poo one day.
Every year Mom also got a 25-cent bottle of Evening in Paris Perfume, straight from Paris to Winn’s in Rockdale. I know for a fact she still has all those bottles.
Dad was – and still is – hard to buy for. I wonder how many ugly 25-cent Winn’s ties he got over the years? If, in the past, you ever laughed at my dad’s ties you can blame it on his kids poor taste and not his own.
One year Kathy got a puppy for Christmas. She named it Warren after Warren Cico, one of her teachers she probably had a crush on. That puppy was one of her favorite gifts.
I was a child during the moon landing and to this day I still enjoy everything space-related. My favorite gift from Santa was my Major Matt Mason Space Station and action figure. In later years Dad said it was probably the hardest thing he ever had to put together on Christmas Eve.
I hope you all are enjoying your past Christmas memories and making some new ones this year.
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