RevGals Friday Five: Christmases Past

Jan over at RevGals offers a Friday Five opportunity to reflect on Christmases past by asking us to share five Christmas memories.

1. When I was a little girl I remember falling asleep to Christmas music. My mother would send me and my three brothers to bed, then she would load up the hifi (as we called it) with records of Christmas music. We had a classic record of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which remains one of my favorite Christmas records. She also had a record of the "classics" Burl Ives, Bobby Helms, someone singing "I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" and someone else singing "Suzy Snowflake"...

2. While we kids were falling asleep, and with those records playing, my mother would bake cookies and fruit breads. So I also fell asleep to the fragrance of delicious food.

3. So Christmas memories for me are sensory - sounds, smells, visual - the twinkling lights from the Christmas tree reflecting into my room...I still love to sit in a room lighted only by the Christmas tree (and a fire if I have a fireplace) and sip a cup of tea while listening to Christmas music.

4. Then there's the year my son was a baby, seven months old, and our daughter was four. Both my kids had chicken pox during the month of December. My daughter had a mild case, first, and then our son got a bad case a little later - high fevers, lots of discomfort, lots of worry. We spent the entire month indoors. Then on Dec. 23 my son was well enough to go outside so I did all of my Christmas shopping in one day, with two kids in tow (including buying their gifts - imagine how sneaky I was). We have photos of that Christmas, really cute ones of my kids sharing some Christmas treat, the baby still showing remnants of the pox. (These were the days before the chicken pox vaccine and before on-line shopping, well even before the Internet).

5. When my husband and I married I enter a family that hosted Christmas Day marathons. Lots of people, lots of kids, all gathered at "Busha's" for a day of feasting and gifting. We were there from early afternoon until late at night. The food was always delicious, especially her homemade cookies. She made so many cookies and we all went home with a box of cookies, several fruit breads, and bag of Cheerios mix (baked with seasonings, pretzels, cheerios, and nuts...still a favorite of my son and husband).