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Showing posts with label A Child's Christmas in Wales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Child's Christmas in Wales. Show all posts

Sunday, December 24, 2017

The Infinity of Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve means different things to different people. To me, it's filled with 50 years of amazing memories. Here are a few...

My earliest memories are of my grandfather, Carl, and I looking up his chimney to see if Santa would be able to fit. I also remember the never ending showings of "It's A Wonderful Life" although it was right around this time when I discovered my all time favorite Christmas film, "Holiday Inn." This was Bing Crosby's first performance of "White Christmas."



In my younger childhood, the night before Christmas meant we would get to open up one present usually right after we got home from church. The Christmas Eve service at my church was magical. The singing...the candle marches...the message...all very comforting and amazing. My mom still goes to the same church and I've gone back with her on Christmas Eve from time to time but it's not the same as those years in the 70s and early 80s.

My later childhood saw many a Christmas Eve with our family friend named Tom who passed away in 2015. Tom was a an elder bachelor who sold yachts for a living and made a pretty decent salary. He always wanted to share it with us and his cousins so my sister and I would always get a pile of gifts from him so the one present thing pretty much went out the window.This was in the early 80s so it was games like this.

This was an upgrade to an earlier version that added in the feature of being able to pass. I remember laying in my old bed and playing this game late into the night.

During my senior year in high school (December, 1984) I was asked my our drama teacher to perform a dramatic reading of "A Child's Christmas in Wales." I've posted this as a tradition here for years.



When my children were little, I read this story to them. I continue the tradition to this day.

All the Christmases with my children have been stellar. It's been fun to watch them experience all the same things that I did when I was a kid. They are 17 and 15 now so the little kid Christmases are gone but they are replaced with hilarious game playing (usually Philadelphia Rummy) and new traditions like watching Die Hard (yes, it's a Christmas film!).

What traditions and memories will future Christmas Eves bring? Honestly, I can't wait!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Monday, December 24, 2012

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.... 

(from "A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas)