Day 7: Wrapping paper

So my family, when I was young, were not rich.  We weren’t dirt poor either but I do remember one year we ran out of wrapping paper.  I had a couple of gifts that I needed to wrap for friends and family. I asked my mom for some wrapping paper. We couldn’t find any. My mom remembered that we might have some scraps from previous years in the burn box.  We had two fireplaces in our home and we used to collect any paper and put it in a box so we could use it to start the fires. For some reason I can’t remember, I had to go out to the garden and grab some paper. I think my dad must have been burning some weeds or something but when I got to the paper of course it was all crumpled up and smelled like smoke. The funny thing is I still used it. I wrapped my presents in wrinkled old smelly paper. The ones that stayed in our home and went under the tree smelled horrible. It seems my family wasn’t really great at stocking wrapping paper (or maybe my mom just used everything we had on the door) because I can also remember wrapping things with the Sunday funnies or brown paper from a grocery sack. Have you ever had to come up with a creative way to wrap a present? Since that experience I try to have wrapping paper in our home at all times. It is good, though, to remember the lesson we learn from the grinch “What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” So no matter if you have wrapping paper or even presents remember the season and what it is really about. We don’t need fancy paper or presents to have a wonderful Christmas season.

Day 6: Christmas Lights

Only 6 Days left! It has been really difficult to find new things to talk about. Now, I know that I had Christmas lights on my original Christmas memories posts but this time I’m talking about lights other people put up not me. I’ve mentioned before that we as a family like to look at lights on Christmas eve. I remember my mother pouring over the newspaper and planning out our route to look at the best lights in town. When we moved to Grants Pass Oregon when I was 16 she found a house that had a truly wonderful display. They had a huge lot and filled it with Christmas scenes. One scene I remember was a real  pond with an ice skating scene. They also had a santa’s workshop scene, a nativity, and so many others.  We would park the car and walk along the fence line and see all the cool lighted scenes. It had a magical feel to it. Even at age 16 it still gave me that magical Christmas feeling that sometimes as we get older we lose touch of. While looking at the lights the people who owned this property would come out and hand out candy canes and wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

We still try and find the best displays to see on Christmas eve.Many of the our favorite displays are those homes that are coordinated with music. I do so appreciate the spirit those lights provide for us on Christmas eve. It still helps me feel the magic.

I love the effort that people make to hang lights up for others to enjoy but I want to remind everyone that we also need to let our own light shine. If we do, than others will appreciate the blessings that come from you. How do you let your light shine? Unselfishness and charity. Find something every day that you can do to serve someone else. It doesn’t have to be big it could be a simple smile or holding a door open for someone. I promise you that if you do you will feel a wonderful light grow within yourself.

Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.

Day 4: Wrapping the door

One year my mom got the idea in her head that we needed to wrap our front door. She would buy some wrapping paper and we literally wrapped the door. We took the roll of paper and wrapped it around a couple of times and then stuck a big red bow on the outside. It looked pretty cute but it wasn’t easy to wrap. In my area now if I tried that the paper would get ruined with the wind and snow. My mom continued doing that for years. I’m not sure if she still does it now.

Another crazy idea my mom had was making paper lanterns. She would buy brown paper sacks and trace Christmas shapes in them. She told all of us we had to do at least two. It wasn’t that easy. If we had 5 people in our family we had to cut out at least 10 sacks. She would then fill the bottom of the sacks with cat liter or sand and add a candle. On Christmas Eve she set them all out along the drive and walkway and lit them all up.  They were pretty but I’m not sure they were really all that safe. Most of us didn’t like cutting out the shapes so there were some years that my mom would end up cutting out many of them on her own. That tradition didn’t last long. I think you can now buy sacks to line your drive with and even put in battery operated candles.

Day 3: Ceramic Christmas Tree

One of my favorite decorations growing up was a ceramic Christmas tree that my grandma Fogg made. My Grandma passed away when I was only 3 years old. When she died my mom inherited some of her Christmas decorations. My grandma used to make a lot of ceramic items. She had a good friend who had the forms and the firing oven to do these crafts. She painted the tree. It looks similar to the one pictured down below. This tree had a light in it with little red birds all around it. It also played music. Silent Night was the song it played. I remember as a child turning out all the lights in the living room and turning on the Christmas lights on the tree and the ceramic Christmas tree. My sisters and I would roll our blankets up like they were sleeping bags and we would pretend we were going camping. I would twist the key on the music tree and we would lay our blankets on the floor and pretend we were in the forest listening to beautiful music. My mom still has the tree. She has since had to replace some of the birds because her cats like to sneak off with them but it is one of the few items we as kids didn’t destroy. That song is still one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Day 2: Christmas Trees

Growing up we always had a real Christmas Tree. The smell was amazing! We would lay the skirt around the bottom and put all kinds of ornaments on it. We also have always had cats. For some reason the tree would become cat territory. The cats would nestle themselves under the tree, usually in the back among the presents, and sleep there.  I don’t know if it was the smell of the outdoors, the unlimited supply of pine infused water, or the dangling tree ornaments that attracted them to it.  I do know that you were just about guaranteed a cat jumping out of the tree and making a mad dash away from kids who came to look at the presents. In the meantime, scaring the crap out of us kids.

Even in college my roommates and I insisted on a real tree. We had a nice friend drive us to Walmart and we bought what we could with what little money we had. It was our Charley Brown tree. It was more of a branch than a tree. We elevated it on a box, that we wrapped, just to make it look a little bigger. It did the job and had an amazing smell too.

Since getting married we have only had the artificial trees.  More cost efficient and pre-lit so no more hassle with lights. The one thing I miss was the amazing smell a real tree brings into the home. One year I found these sticks that you put on your tree and they smell like pine or fur or whatever tree smell you wanted. What I didn’t anticipate was how strong that smell would be.  I hung 3 or 4 around the tree and within an hour my house was over run with the smell of pine.  It was too strong.  So I took all but one down.  The smell was still too much. I was determined I would get use to it and left it up.  I think that was the stinkiest Christmas we ever had. I won’t be doing that ever again.  Maybe since we have a pine tree now I’ll try taking a cutting and putting it somewhere in our home just so I can have that amazing smell again.

Our tree this year.

A couple of years ago I did a 12 days of Christmas memories blog posts. I really enjoyed it and it really helped me feel the Christmas spirit. I’ve decided to do it again. This is going to be more difficult because I used 12 of the best but easiest ones to remember before. So coming up with 12 new ones will be a challenge. You are welcome to review the previous posts from a few years ago.

Day 1: Bubble lights

Our Christmas tree had these bubble lights on them. When you turned the lights on at night it would take a while but they would start to bubble. I remember just staring at those lights for the longest time. I loved them. I think you can still buy bubble lights but they are probably safer and more energy efficient. The ones I remember actually got pretty warm and probably weren’t the safest thing to put on the tree. I also remember a few of the tips breaking from them and water leaking everywhere. They were fun for the years we did have them.