Throwback Thursday - Kristen in her Christmas Dress and her first "Piece"

Christmas 1974; Kristen was 2 years old.

Just a little background.  Bethany, our church, in 1974 was not nearly as big as it is now.  It was located on the corner of Springfield and Armory Streets in Springfield.  Every Christmas season back then Bethany had a Children's Christmas Program where the Sunday School kids would say their "piece" up on the pulpit in front of the whole church.  Sometimes there was a little pageant that would go along with it playing out the Christmas story.  Afterwards the kids would all receive Christmas candy in an orange web type stocking or Christmas box.  I remember saying my piece when I was a kid, so this had been going on for a long time.  I'm not sure when they stopped doing this, probably when the church got bigger.

At any rate, back in 1974 they were still doing it.  Kristen came home from Sunday School with a "piece" to say.  She was only 2, so I wasn't sure if she would do it.  Paul's mom, GG, bought her a new dress and when the time came, she got right up  there and said her "piece".  She was the youngest one to do it.

I had written it down in her baby book and this is what it was:

Shining for Jesus - "A little star up in the sky can shine for Jesus, so can I."  I'm not sure if anyone else understood her but I sure did!  Needless to say, we were all so proud of her!

She also sang a song with two other little girls, Pammy Bennett and Heather Sorcinelli.  So cute.

Also, in looking through her baby book I found that in 1975 when she was 3, her piece was called My Wish for You - "A wish for you, it comes from me.  May your Christmas very happy be."

These pictures were given to me by someone from church years later.  I don't remember who.  The one above was from 1975.

The one below was from 1976 but by then I had stopped writing in her baby book and I don't have her "piece".  I do know that all three years she sang a song with these same girls.




PS - In looking through Mark's baby book, I never wrote down any of his Christmas "pieces."  The one thing I do know is that he did not start at 2 years old, lol!

James the Elf

Meet James the Elf, the elderly elf that showed up at Grandma and Baba's house last year!

Just to back track a little, Dominic the Elf came to visit Mason and Miriam's house in 2014.  I think Auntie Maria put a little bug in Dominic's ear that he needed to go visit them!  He returned to the North Pole on Christmas Day, but he comes back every December 1st.  Mason seemed to really like the whole idea of Dominic (although the first year he was very sad to see him go back to the North Pole).

Last year when Paul was digging around in some of our old Christmas decorations in the cellar, he found this elf that reminded me of Dominic.  I decided to play along and put him out for the kids to see.  Miriam was fine with James, but Mason didn't think he was a real Elf on the Shelf.  He said that he didn't look anything like his elf and that he was ugly.  I told him he was an old Elf, like Grandma and Baba and that was why he was at our house!  He wasn't buying any of it.  He asked me if he could touch him (a no-no with the real Elf on the Shelf, if you touched them they couldn't fly back to the North Pole to tell Santa how you have been each day).  I said that this elf you could touch.

This year James showed up at Grandma and Baba's again.  Again, Miriam loved seeing him, but not Mason.  He still says he is not real and that he is ugly but I detect that secretly he likes him, lol!

It has been fun playing along with Mason.  I'm so glad that he still believes in all of the Christmas magic (even if he doesn't believe James is a real Elf on the Shelf).

Throwback Thursday - My Cousin Lynda and her Kitchen Set

This is my cousin Lynda Lundstrom Brouillette.  It was Christmas 1957.  She was almost 4 years old.

These pictures are from my aunt Dot's slides.  Every time we used to look at them in later years my cousin would say, look at my hair!!  Bobby pins made quite a curl, or maybe that was a perm!

We spent Christmas day that year at my aunt Ettie and Uncle Bob's house in Norwich, CT where he was a pastor of the Norwich Assembly of God church.

Lynda got that kitchen set for Christmas.  I remember being so jealous that she had that kitchen set.  It was made of cardboard and I thought it was the best thing ever!!  She also got kitchen accessories, dishes, food, pans!  Wow!

My cousin Lynda has been having a hard time for the past year.  Her mom has been in an assisted living center/nursing home and is now in Florida near Lynda's brother Donald.  This has been very hard on Lynda.  I'm hoping things get better for her.

****Update - The same day as this post, later in the afternoon, I got a call from my cousin Lynda telling me that her mom, my Aunt Ettie passed away.  The funeral is next Wednesday in Delaware.  So sad, but I know that she is in a better place, by far.

My Five (So Far) Phases of Christmas

When I was much younger, I would notice that every year around Christmas time, my mother-in-law Priscilla would get, not quite melancholy, but pensive. When I would ask her about it she would just say that she was thinking about Christmases past. I never really understood it then, but I think I do now.

I was thinking, today, about all of the different Christmas seasons that I have had in my lifetime.

I think it started because we got a new, smaller tree this year. I have to transfer all of my ornaments onto this tree and I am thinking that I will not be able to fit all of them. We have some ornaments that go way back to Paul's grandparents' ornaments, ornaments that Paul bought at Rocky's (where he worked while he was in college) our first married Christmas, ornaments that the kids made for us and gave us over the years, some that I made in my craft years (that didn't last long), and now ornaments that we exchange every year with the family by picking names. In 1996 we went from a big tree to a table top tree. I tried to pick our favorite ornaments of every different type. We also have boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations that we don't use anymore. It seems each year I put up less and less.

It came to me that I have had five phases of Christmas, so far.

Phase One is Christmases of my childhood. Most years it was at our house with everyone coming for the day, and my cousins coming for a few days. Sometimes we would go to wherever my Uncle Bob was pastoring.


1956

1957

1958

1965

1966

Phase Two was when I started dating Paul and our first couple of years together without children. Christmas was very romantic at that time. We were starting to gather our own Christmas decorations and traditions.



1967

1970 - Paul and my first married Christmas tree

1971

Phase Three was when we had little children. This was an exciting time - dressing them up and bringing them to church festivities and having them excited about Santa. We were still going to our families' houses for Christmas, and also traveling to Paul's aunts and uncles' homes, and also his Grandmother's family in the Boston area.



1974

1975

1976

Phase Four was when we started having Christmas at our house (I'm not positive but some time in the late 70's) and all that that entails - getting the house decorated, Christmas shopping for the kids for ourselves and also our families (they never knew what to buy the kids; it was just easier for me to do it), having dinner at our house, and then still visiting relatives on different days. It was a busy time, but I loved it. This phase also included having married children and grandchildren. Everyone still came for dinner; the house was still fully decorated even though we went to a smaller tree.



1979

1987

1992 Our $5 cut tree from someone's front yard

1992 What the tree looked like decorated - it was huge!

1994 Another $5 cut tree from the same yard

2004

2005

2005

2005

2007

2010

2011

Now, I feel like I am in Phase Five. Most of the older generation is gone, except for Paul's dad, and my aunt Dot. Mark and Janelle have taken over the holidays, for which I am grateful. They bought a house in the beginning of November 2012. I had Thanksgiving at my house that year, but then my Dad died in December, and they had Christmas at their house. Janelle's parents had been joining us for Christmas for quite a few years, and Stacia and I do a lot of the cooking but I don't have the meal and the opening of presents at my house anymore.



2012

Mark and Janelle's tree

2013

2014 Holiday Brunch at Dot's nursing home

This is my cousin Lynda and her husband Ray at their home in Delaware

2015

I haven't decorated my smaller tree yet this year, so I don't have any pictures.

This is the first year that I haven't had my aunt Dot over for the holidays. It is just too confusing for her (and truth be told, for us too). This Thanksgiving we had her over the next Sunday with the family, and this seemed to work out really well. I plan to do that for Christmas too.

A lot of these phases have overlapped at certain times, but I see a pattern here. I totally understand now what my mother-in-law was feeling. Christmas is still wonderful no matter what phase you are in, just different. The key is to remember past Christmases but still enjoy the present one.

Digital scrapbook pages - 4th Annual Mason and Marley Zoo Picture, Playing or reading in the leaves, Mason's first time at the Singing Christmas Tree

I have been really getting into digital scrapbooking lately. I have never really enjoyed the "crafty" part of scrapbooking and doing it digitally with templates, pictures and stories totally fits my style.

So, I thought I would share with you the latest pages that I have been working on.

Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Throwback (Monday) - Linda and Ralph

Linda and Ralph Christmas Day 1991

Today we met some friends at Krazy Jake's for lunch to visit with Linda and Ralph who are back home from South Carolina for a week or two. 

While looking at pictures later, I saw this picture of Linda and Ralph at my house on Christmas Day 1991.  The first thought that went through my head was, "I wonder if Linda can still sit like that in a hard wooden chair."  I'm sure I couldn't.

Wow, time marches on while you're not even paying attention.

Throwback Thursday - Our first Christmas tree

The screen saver picture on my computer is a Christmas picture of my grandmother, my cousin, me and Paul. I have blogged about this picture before here. I must look at this picture 1000 times a day. Today I went looking for a picture of our first Christmas tree.

It was 1970, we had been married for four months and, obviously, we had none of our own Christmas decorations. Paul's mother gave us quite a few of her ornaments. She had gone to a small tree by this time and she had some ornaments that went back to her mother's tree.

At the time, Paul worked at Rocky's Hardware and he brought home some ornaments from there. As I look at this tree, I can see that we still have some of those old ornaments. Somehow I am not surprised!

Throwback Thursday - Christmas Musical 1946

When Toby's grandmother died last year, his mother found this in her things. Barbara gave it to me after I asked her if I could scan it.

Front row left to right is Daisy, my Aunt Dot's friend; Priscilla, my mother-in-law; my Aunt Dot; and above my mother-in-law is my Aunt Ettie. So many of the people I grew up with are in this picture.

Bethany has been doing Christmas Musicals for a long time!

All that is left is the tree....

Believe it or not, today I put away the rest of our Christmas decorations. Everything except the Christmas tree, that is. The Christmas tree needs some repair work. Some of the branches have broken off from the central stem and need to be either hose clamped, or zip tied. The hose clamp list is a story for another day, but Paul has a list of all of the things he has hose clamped. It usually brings gales of laughter to whoever he reads it to!! I think zip ties are taking over repair jobs lately though.

Anyhow......everyting else is put away. I decided to leave my new Willow Tree nativity out this year. I just can't put it away yet.