Christmas Memories - Part 1

Christmas memories - its that time of year again.... kids looking forward to the big day, people getting ready - doing all the baking, shopping, wrapping presents and hopefully listening and singing along to some Christmas music. What do you remember most about Christmas? For me, it was the presents (an absolute ton of them), the cookies that Mom and I made way ahead of time, and of course the music. My friend Barb was over recently and she downloaded some Christmas music and we were laughing over the choice of the songs. She was even kind enough to download some of my favorites. Growing up I listened to a lot of different music, my Mom loved country music and her favorite singer was Jim Reeves. I remember her on Sunday mornings (before church), she would lie in bed and listen to the LPs (remember them - vinyl records). Looking back we would tease Mom about the music but now I can appreciate the beautiful voice this man had. Barb very kindly downloaded "An Old Christmas Card" - it brought tears to my eyes, remembering Mom and listening to this man's voice. My brother George loved Nana Mouskouri and I love her version of "Ave Maria" and "Petit Papa Noel". Then of course, favorites by Bing Crosby, Mahalia Jackson, Mario Lanza and some fun songs by Great Big Sea, the Irish Rovers and of course Alvin and the Chipmunks. Mom and I would sit for hours and wrap presents - she would sit at one end of the table and pass me the presents in their boxes and then hand me the sticker with the persons name on it. I cannot tell you the number of times that I had unknownly wrapped my own presents. I don't know about you but I always thought we had lots of money when I was growing up because we had presents piled up under that Christmas tree. They would be stacked 3 or 4 high, leaning up against each other. But I have to tell you - Mom would wrap everything!! We always received new underwear, new socks, new nightgowns and pajamas, new slippers every year AND each item was wrapped separately ... so with 4 kids and 2 adults - that was a lot of presents under the tree. That's it for now, in the next post - the cookies and the fruit cake and our Christmas stockings. Thank you for taking the time from your busy life to read my blog. Hugs Louise