Thursday, November 29, 2012

Christmas Memories From The Gang



We are working our little fingers to the bone to get everything ready for the December sale coming up December 6-7-8-9.  We have been working so hard that I haven't even got a chance to get photos yet.  BUT I will soon!  In the meantime, we thought you might enjoy hearing some of our favorite Christmas memories!!  Get ready to laugh and cry - and think about your own favorite Christmas memories too.

Rose's memories - When my daughter Julie was about 3 or 4 years old she got a doll carriage for Christmas. She was sooooo excited and she said "Oh I have wanted one for years and years and years".

I have never been the brightest bulb in lifes marquee. It was after Christmas and I just wanted that dry old tree out of my house. Everytime I moved it an inch it shed more needles into the shag carpet (yes, I had a rake to "rake" the carpet too!). So, I decided to just stuff the darn thing into the fire place and let it go up in smoke. As you can imagine.....it exploded because of all of the resin in it.! Lesson learned. ( I was very young....if you could die from "dumb" I would be long gone!)

Kris's memory - I have so many! When my son was young I was still working in sales. I represented Bethany Housewares and would spend most Saturday's during the holiday season going to small town hardware stores doing lefse demo's. Always on the Friday after Thanksgiving I would do a lefse demo at Lyndale Hardware in Richfield. My son would come with me and help roll out the lefse or many times
the store managers would find him "jobs" to do while I was making lefse and selling lefse grills. After the demo we would always go to Bachman's to see Santa and the live reindeer and then to Lyndale Garden center to pick out a new ornament from the millions that they had. And that day would be the start of our annual Christmas Tree counting game. We would count how many trees we saw tied to the top of cars or sticking out of cars. I could only count the trees I saw while he was in the car with me. He would remember from day to day the exact count and get so excited when his count was higher than mine! That Friday was always a "best" day - then we would go home and decorate the tree that night. We would get all of the boxes of ornaments out and unwrap each and every one before we put any on the tree. Each one would bring comments - "we got that one on this trip" or "so and so made that one for us" or "remember what that one stands for - the year we did this or that". Once they were all unwrapped we would each grab our favorite ornaments and have a race to get the best spots for our favorites. I had one that he thought was exceptionally ugly - and he had one that I felt the same about. So we would spend a lot of time during the holidays hiding each others ornaments on the back side of the tree. Every night when I came home from work I would have to go search the tree for my favorite ornament and bring her back to the front - while my son would be watching and giggling. I miss those days!

MaryAnn's memories (get your Kleenex!) - My mom and dad provided the best Christmas memories ever. When I was very young, my father and brother would cut down our Christmas tree and I can remember dad fireproofing the tree in our back yard. In the early years, the tree was up on Christmas morning, a big surprise for us when we came downstairs. It was beautiful with the gold garland my mom used eve
ry year. One year mom and dad had very little money; only the $10 that dad's aunt had sent them for a Christmas gift. Everything under the tree was made of paper. My brother and I had no idea that there were money problems. We were happy, safe and very loved. As years went on, my brother and I had children and they have been part of the Christmas miracle also. Jack, Tricia, Janna and I would travel to Connecticut every December to spend two weeks of Christmas bliss. Dad decorated the tree outside so that the kids could see the house from the big hill on our way from the airport.Every Christmas eve, Santa ( a friend of the family's) would come to see the kids and talk with them about what they wanted under their tree. One year when Tricia was 2 years, she told Santa that she had seen him at "Bwookdale". Santa's visits thru the years brought laughter and wonderful tears to our eyes. Our Christmas' have been full of fun, laughter, love and many blessings. Jack and I are trying to do the same for our children and grandchildren with the memories of mom and dad in our hearts forever.

Yvonne's Christmas memories - Sitting in the living room of my Grandma and Grandpa’s farm house getting ready to open presents and hearing Santa walking around on the roof. He would come in and hand out presents to all of the kids and then disappear…it took a few years to realize that our Uncle Leonard was the only one missing when Santa made his appearance!

One of the last Christmas memories I have of my dad is ice skating on the frozen pond in my parents back yard. He made sure it was clear of snow before we came over. Sledding down the back hill on our butts, playing boot hockey (for those of us with our ice skates), then heading inside for hot chocolate when we were too cold to move.

Amy's Christmas memory - Going to my grandma and grandpa’s house and seeing the silver tinsel Christmas tree with the rotating color wheel which projected colored light up through the tree from the floor! I remember my cousins and I would sit and look at the tree for hours, as kids wondering how this tree was turning colors. It was one of many great Christmas memories! What I would do to have the tree now!

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