Christmases Remembered
When I was a young girl, my family spent Christmas Eve at
my grandma’s and grandpa’s house, just across the lane from our home. On that
special night we ate dinner (or supper as we called it) at the table in the end
of the living room that served as the dining room. I looked forward to Grandma’s
meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits and chocolate cake. I knew
I might receive two new pencils and a Big Chief tablet as a present too.
One of my favorite Christmas memories, though, is of Grandma’s
Christmas decorations. To decorate for Christmas, she placed a patch of white
cotton quilt batting on the table to represent snow. She then set two small
artificial pine trees in the cotton snow and added a plastic red sleigh and
eight reindeer. She completed her decorating by standing a Santa figure in the
sleigh. The display probably cost less than $1.00 at the dime store. I was
mesmerized by the simple scene and imagined Santa sailing through the sky in
his sleigh and stopping at each of the houses of our country neighbors. His
last stop was always my house.
I now spend several days each year decorating my house for
Christmas. Over the years Santa, the sleigh and the reindeer were lost. The
trees survived though. They are not as fresh-looking as they were many years
ago, but they are still found in my house each Christmas. I look at them and
long for the time of simpler decorations…and enjoy my memories of Christmas Eve
at Grandma’s.
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