You know, it is hard to remember all of the Christmas's that came and went and what was special about that time etc. Do you remember fighting tinsel on the Christmas tree and how your Mother would say "take ONE piece and don't throw it on, place it".
And also remember how tinsel started out all foil and broke all of the time and then they made it out of silver plastic and it was easier to put on...and throw when your Mom wasn't looking? And those bubble lights that sometimes about set the house on fire?
Or was our house the only one?
My Mother used to make a chocolate chilled cookie thing that was mainly chocolate with colored marshmallows in it and walnuts. Remember sliced cookies from the fridge with walnuts too? Like butterscotch I think. Every year she made that and yucky rum balls which I never did develop a taste for.
And she made fruitcake and my Dad made fudge and they bought groceries and made up lovely boxes for friends. I usually got new underwear and always hoped for a new blouse or something I could wear to school.
In those days we spent alot of time outdoors playing because we weren't allowed to sit and watch television and hey, not all of the kids in the neighborhood even had a television.
On snowy days, we sledded all day long and went home exhausted and cold. Mom always had a nice hot dinner of some kind because that was the way it was back then...no tv dinners, pizza, tacos, or sandwiches.
I remember well, the ice skating in the winter at Tullee pond in Spokane and how some of the parents would come and watch and show the kids how to pivot and glide...the ice over the extinct volcano was always solid.
Not so today....I don't think it every gets hard enough that anyone would dare go skating on it. Christmas Eve always centered around going to church and remembering what this day really meant.
When I got older I would attend at least two different churches and sometime three if I could find someone to go to Midnight Mass with me too.
New Years Day was always wonderful because my Dad took us out to a fancy restaurant.
We didn't go out to eat like people do today.
Those days were so much simpler and so much nicer in some ways. We didn't have all of the political bashing, we didn't have as much gossip about stars and things having to do with sex, people weren't around swearing and harsh talk,
people were more trustworthy, there wasn't as much stealing at a moments notice
, a hand shake meant something, chores were something most kids had to do to learn how to work,
we respected our elders and knew how to chat with adults,
it seemed that more people went to church and were better for it and most Dad's worked and most Mom's were home doing the housework etc.
It was a good time to be brought up and many of those rules and ways stuck with us as we plod through these newer times. It was slower, it was sweeter and it was more innocent.
I miss that.
