At the risk of being pedestrian. Or maybe a little ‘Tuesday’…
MERRY CHRISTMAS.
Though for the animals down here on the farm.
Christmas Day is like any other day.
And any other day is All About the Food.
I wanted to say something deep and meaningful about Christmas. But when I look deeply I really have not so much to say. Christmas like the Tooth Fairy and The Easter Rabbit is for children and their people. And bless their shiny faced smiles I want them to have wonderful christmas’ses. But then we, as adults, grown up and without the children anymore spend so much time trying to recapture that innocent child-like delight. And though we are all grown up – it is still there: that child-like delight at a wonderful surprise. Or simply a gentle day without the bother of having to keep anyone else happy but yourself. I love those kinds of days.
I hope you have a lovely and delightful day. Alone or with others. (Personally I prefer alone no-one bothers you on Christmas day).
And thank you. Honestly, you are good and kind. Thank you. Thank you for allowing my animals and I to be a part of your Christmas Day.
As a special treat I am wondering if you would like to share with me/us -any Members of the Fellowship, who like me are not swamped in family and would love the distraction – an early Christmas memory. Maybe even your first precious Christmas memory. I will add mine into the Lounge of Comments after some thinking – (around FIFTY – SIXTY words? is that enough?).
Like many of our posts – the real reading is in the Lounge of Comments.
Love, love,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
76 responses to “Good morning”
Today is my Birthday. Christmas is the pits for a Birthday, ask Jesus! I was born into a wonderful family. I had two older sisters, who watched out for their little “demon” brother. My first memory was our family going to Dayton’s in down town Minneapolis to visit Santa. After I sat on Santa’s lap, his helpers gave me a waxed bottle of some sort of sweet juice inside. Well, how was I to know that one was not to bite off both ends? My Mother tried to get the stain out of my Christmas clothes, so we could continue our Christmas shopping. Thank you for letting us share our first memories. Kiss Sheila for me. I absolutely love pigs.
Happy birthday! 🙂
Happy Birthday… and best wishes for a great year ahead! (Santa’s elves are supposed to hand out candy canes, in any event, so it wasn’t your fault at all!) 🙂
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Spike, I will sing Happy Birthday and blow out a candle in your honour when I sit to my table!
Many more happy returns. 🙂 Laura
Happy Birthday! You should get double the presents.
Happy Birthday. I remember those wax bottles and the escalator in the Woolworths store in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan.
Many happy returns, Spike. My birthday, and my son’s are in December (he was due on Christmas Day, but bless him, he arrived a few days early at the start of the worst winter in Britain in 100 years) and my son-in law and daughter both have January birthdays.
Hey, happy birthday Christmas baby. 😀
Looking at the multitude of good wishes, hope you are having a great day, that Yule ‘stuff’ notwithstanding 😉 !
Happy birthday, Spike!
I remember being taken to a church service when I was very little. There was a knocking on the door. All the children were hushed, and in came St. Nicholas.
I was brought up with the tradition of St. Nicholas on December 6th and Mother Christmas on Christmas Eve night — Santa didn’t feature in my childhood Christmases.
Merry Christmas!
Me too. I miss St. Nicholas leaving treats in my shoe. 🙂
It’s all about the food for me – I love cooking the goose and flash frying the (chef’s perk) liver.
We has a ginger cat, not surprisingly called Ginger, when I was little. He used to knock the glass baubles (and they were real glass back then) off the tree and eat them. He never suffered any ill effects, though we did take them away from him if caught in time. …and of course he was banned from the room with the tree 😉
Merry Christmas Cecilia 🙂
I hope your Christmas Day was all you wanted it to be. My favourite memory of Christmas was the year, I must have been about 10, when we received coolite surfboards for Christmas. We all rushed off to the beach and stayed there most of the day. We came home with board rash all over our tummies, but were back the next day to do it all again.
Long ago my dad and I had a horse each. I used to cut up christmas wrapping paper into streamers and weave into mane and tail. We then set off for a good gallop. Now Christmas is one long slog – we try to ignore it!
We had our quiet Christmas alone, just he and me. And a little while before sunset we drove to Honeymoon Gap and I took lovely photos of trees. May you and our John and the animals have a peaceful day. xx
Sounds like a wonderful day to me! 🙂
I used to love going out to Honeymoon Gap when I lived in Alice….a group of us would go on full moon nights and boil tea in a billy and chant and sing. A wonderful way to spend Christmas.
And a very good morning to you!
Our Christmas stockings, when I was a child, were filled with fruits and nuts with just a couple of small treasures. There was always always always a fabulously red BCDelicious apple in the toe and a real tangerine in the heel. In those days these special treats were only available at Christmastime and they were treasures of a different sort. My earliest memories of Christmas are always of the excitement of the stocking… even though we knew ahead of time what the bulk was going to be… lol And the candy, of course, ribbon candy and spiced hard candies… the sort of thing you only get at Christmastime.
These days I am closer to your way of thinking… Christmas is just so darned much work! Putting up the tree takes a couple of hours… and then, just a couple of weeks later, all the *stuff* (an acceptable word in print) has to be taken down and gently wrapped so it stays unbroken… and the clean-up seems never-ending. I just don’t do it anymore; I let my kids do that chore and enjoy their tree, and all the other seasonal decor. I do have a belief in the spiritual meaning of Christmas, though, and so I take heart in that.
I do hope you have a lovely day, Miss C., and that, in your phone calls, you find your family all well and happy and looking forward to your visit that is quickly approaching! ~ Mame 🙂
My English childhood Christmases were a bit different from most; Christmas Eve was for the Christmas story, read by my father from the Bible, then putting the baby in the manger in our nativity scene, and then to bed for a few hours before our parents got us up for Midnight Mass. We’d had the ‘proper’ presents for St Nicholas on 6th (because my mother was Dutch, and that’s how she was brought up), but we got a little something else because all the other children did. I can remember going with my parents as a very small child to deliver presents to all their friends on Christmas Eve, and seeing deer and rabbits in the headlights of the car, the dark and frosty landscape, and then the bright, welcoming doorways of our friends’ houses, the good smells of Christmas pouring out, the sound of carols on the radio. Now, I live a very different Christmas in tropical north Australia, but Christmas Eve is still my favourite part of the season. Dear Celi, may you have the Christmas you wish for, even if that is a non-celebration of the day. We each have the Christmases we need. I still need Midnight Mass, visiting friends, and the sound of carols on the radio…
When my boys were probably 7 and 10, they decided to sleep in the living room so they could see Santa come down the chimney. My husband and I took turns wrapping in the bedroom (one had to be the lookout.) When they fell asleep, we tiptoed in with some presents. One of the boys moved and my husband dove behind the couch and I dove behind the chair. We didn’t get caught, but seeing our cat-like reflexes started one of those silent laughing moments. Hubby would peek around the couch to see if the coast was clear and seeing his face would start my laughing fits which would start his laughing fits. We finally got all the gifts under the tree but I don’t remember ever laughing that hard since.
My Grandfather always got up very early in the morning when he and my grandmother stayed over at our farm. When I was around 5 or 6 I begged to sleep with him on Christmas Eve. After he went to sleep ( or so I thought) I tied a string from his toe to mine thinking he would wake me up early and I could peek at what Santa had brought (before my 2 older sisters). You all know how this story ends. Lol. The string was untied and I slept way past dawn. I was mad at my Grandpa all Christmas day! 😊
Hey, hey, it started raining during the night 🙂 I had my shower outside this morning. The two (ginger) cats have been taking all telephonic complaints – denying any knowledge or relationship with me, the dog is in her kennel with a menstrual migraine, paws over her eyes 🙂 My childhood christmasses were wonderful with all the trimmings and too much food and lots of surprises opened early on Christmas morning. I agree it takes a child or two to make the day special. I have just made a large pot of coffee and have opened a packet of Woollies mince pies, my only concession, alone in my Christmas free zone. Laura
Now that we’re empty-nesters Christmas morning is quiet and mellow. I slept in an extra hour this morning (my gift to myself). Even though the animals aren’t aware that it’s a holiday, I give them treats. Because, why not?
Wishing you a pleasant Christmas day!
Oops! I think my ‘story’ comment is in the spam bucket… I hope the pigs do not eat it. I put a link in it to a p-ost on my blog.
Today is about survival. My son is deployed to the middle east and is greatly missed. But he is alive and safe and that is the best gift of all. One year when he was almost 7 he started crying because he felt we had too many gifts under the tree. He said, “We have too much”. When I asked him how we should fix this he said he wanted to be Santa for kids who didn’t have as much as we did. It was profound and humbling. We went shopping the next day and both my kids picked out toys to be dropped off for Toys for Tots. He has a deep soul, that boy of mine.
Isn’t that wonderful. Merry Christmas
Ooh, tears are stinging my eyes at this.
That’s an amazing story about your son as a young hcild. It strikes me how children are so full of character at such a young age – unnerving, really! He had the courage of a grown man, even then. And of course, even now. ❤
Thank you!
Yes. This will be us next Christmas, I’m afraid, as my 21 year old son will deployable by then. He is with us this Christmas, though, so we are loving on him as much as he will allow.
I was 6 the year I began to believe in Santa Claus. We had no money for a tree, in another new state (military family) and just the 4 of us set off in the dark to see if we could find a tree small enough for dad to cut down himself in the woods. He gave it his all but no trees could be cut down with a pocket knife. As mom carried my baby sister into the dark porch then into front door with dad leading the way, I saw a shadow. Scared me at first. Then I asked my parents if they saw it. Finally turning on a light, we all discovered a lovely small tree standing there. I knew Santa had left if for us. I even had a gift that year that was under the tree on Christmas morning. There were no ornaments as the neighbors brought us a nice fat chicken for Christmas dinner. I learned the true meaning of Christmas that year. That there is goodness in a hard world.