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”
I remember edging up the narrow church basement stairs, crammed tight against friends dressed in their Christmas best. We would round the corner and ascend a few more steps into the sanctuary as we sang “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful.” Such joy. Singing Christmas hymns in church on Christmas Eve remains one of my favorite parts of Christmas. And then, after the service, we practically ran down the aisle, pausing only long enough to receive a goodie bag brimming with peanuts, an apple, an orange, ribbon candy and a Hershey bar. Oh, blessed and cherished memories.
Merry Christmas, Miss C!
Mine is about music, I can’t have been more than seven or eight. We had just moved from a small to an even smaller Dutch village, knew nothing and nobody there, had no idea about local traditions. Christmas in this part of the world is [or at least used to be] not about presents – that is St Nicholas’ job on the 5th – but all about family dinner, playing games, and quality time in general. What I remember from that night after our lovely dinner is half-waking up in the dead of night because in the half-distance voices were singing ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’. Had I died and gone to heaven? No, I was warm and comfy in my bed – it was part of the local church choir, who after Night Mass had a long-standing tradition of going round the village singing a few carols on every street corner. So beautiful and unreal in the silence of that night.
Happy Christmas from a long-standing (but usually silent) reader, everybody two- and four-legged.
I guess one of my “stuck in the memory bank memories” is how I spent the first hour of Christmas as a child. I am the oldest of six and I always would wake up before anyone else-
I got into the habit of tip toeing down the stairs and would turn on the Christmas tree lights and just sit and look at the tree and all the wrapped gifts that lord knows where my parents hid them! After a bit I would turn out the lights tip toe back up to my room and wait. I still do that – it is my moment of reflection and anticipation. Different now of course as all our kids are scattered across the country along with my siblings. Have a lovely day! Give Boo a big hug and pat for me!
Happy Boxing Day Miss, I’m surprised because I had a great day yesterday and I usually am a Grinch about Christmas. I spent each meal of the day with good friends, old and new and my boy, skyped with my daughter, and sat on the river bank backyard of what will become my new home with a couple of friends and for anyone who wanted to go for a sunset walk and join us eating pavlova……quite a few turned up and we watched the full rise. It was magical. My first memory of Christmas I was about 3, and woke to hear my mum and grandma talking quietly and the rustling of paper…..so I got out of bed to peek. I saw my grandmother holding the beautiful walking doll I had dreamed of having ready to wrap her. I snuck back to bed feeling excited and happy that the doll was to be mine, but aware I’d spoilt my surprise. I called her Joanne. I passed that doll to my daughter and then my granddaughters played with her, I think she’s still good enough to now go to my g-grandaughter.
I have so many favorite Christmas memories. Today is the day I trot them all out like a long parade of magic. When I was three, I was supposed to be sleeping, but I could never sleep on Christmas eve. I was too excited. I was just about to drift off. It was very late, maybe two in the morning. Or 9pm. I was three. Anything after 8 seemed like the middle of the night. Anyway, I was slowly falling asleep when BOOM! I heard and felt a thump on the roof. To this day, there is no explanation for the jarring thud. I tried my best to go to sleep after that because Santa KNOWS when you’re sleeping AND when you’re awake. But it was futile. He did leave me lovely presents. That was the year of the Baby That-a-way. Batteries included. Santa was always thoughtful enough to remember the batteries.
Me earliest Christmas memory is when I was 3 and my sister was 1. We were at Grandma’s house wearing matching fluffy Christmas dresses. I snatched a jack-in-the-box from my adorable baby sister and made her cry. Somewhere on this planet is a picture of me playing with the jack-in-the-box without a care in the world next to my sister’s wide-mouthed, red-faced sob. My favorite memories, though, are Christmas Eves at my Oma’s house: https://nenemac.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/christmas-eve/
In Prague, we celebrated on the 24th evening. We children would help my grandmother in the kitchen because we were not allowed into the living room. Then, when supper was ready, the living room doors were opened to reveal a shining, glass ornament filled Christmas tree with real candles illuminating it. I don’t think there was a more magical sight ever. 😀
My Christmas memories are all about family and food. I am an only child of older parents, so spending Christmas and Thanksgiving in Brooklyn at a home where a number of my father’s sisters lived, was magical (he came from a big Italian family). All the cousins and the aunties and a few uncles (although not so many by then), everyone pitching in and cooking on multiple floors. They always sent a few of us kids down the block to the bakery shop to buy the pastries and bread. We stood in long lines and ogled everyone and everything around us. The food and laughter never ended. Most of us kids slept on the floor in one aunt’s apartment, and we whispered and giggled until late. We still enjoy the holiday with our boys and our grandchildren, but that was something special back in the early to mid ’60s!
Hi! I’m Sunny – long time reader, but new to the lounge – Hubby Bill just had a triple bypass, so our Christmas is very quiet – usually is – except for phone calls as the rest of our family is out of state and/or busy with their own families. Fine by us! We live on a small acreage with about 10 chickens and 2 kitties. My fondest recollection of Christmas was the year mom had dad throw the breaker switch – dinner had already been cooked, it was twilight, the huge fireplace going great guns, mom lit the kerosene lamps a (‘power outage due to the weather’) and after supper, she lit the candles on the tree (a no-no now) played carols on the piano while we sang in various off-key kid’s voices. and had a truly old-fashioned Christmas in 1952!
Hi! Sunny here…long-time reader, but new to the Lounge. Wrote a paragraph on our family’s old fashioned Christmas (1800’s style celebrated in 1952). Guess I did things backwards, as it didn’t show up. Anyway, my hubby and I are celebrating quietly on our small farm in the mountains just south of Yosemite Nat;l Park. Merry Christmas to you al!
Sunny
I have so many Christmas memories from when I was growing up, but with 6 kids in the family, what I remember most is the piles and piles of wrapping paper and we’d put it all in one big pile then leap into it and throw it around and make an even bigger mess! My recent funniest memory is when my mother bought my boyfriend (now my hubby) a tie for Christmas about 20 years ago. Back then we had a woodstove in our house, and burned up all the wrapping paper in it. After all was said and done, we discovered my husband accidentally burned up the tie! We still laugh about it this day. I don’t think I ever did tell my mother about that.
Second time here today, but I have to say that this was the best way to spend a quiet Christmas day – reading all of the fellowship stories and memories. Thank you MIss C, for the suggestion. Once more you seem to have a mysterious way of knowing what will touch even the grouchiest – or most cantankerous of us in the farmy collective. Best wishes to everyone.
Merry Christmas! I loved Christmas with my family .. Pavlova and pokutakawa blossoming. Christmas trees and playing cards. And lots of love
I have had innumerable lovely Christmases in my life, from quiet spousal-partners-only days of walking in the park, cooking midday dinner together, and drowsing happily at home like today to the full-on extravaganzas that went on for days and weeks when I was young. I loved the chaos and sparkle of those times, too: the reconnection with friends and loved ones, the beautifully decorated world around me exciting a sense of the exotic and magical, and the spectacular meals and treats, made by all of the grownups and some of the kids in our extended family of 40-ish members and eaten with great relish and no pause from about my birthday on the 12th of December to sometime just after the New Year had begun.
But, then and now, I know that what I loved most and will always love is the revisited awareness of how rich I am in good company and in a happy, contented, peaceful life. And I can wish nothing greater for others, however that can be devised and enjoyed.
So I wish it with all of my heart to all of the Fellowship, to the darling Miss C who brings us all together, and to the world at large, no matter whether they name it Christmas or not.
Kathryn
Having been born in Northern Europe our family celebrations also took place on Christmas Eve . . Christmas Day lunch was for ‘important’ guests and Boxing Day called ‘Second Christmas Day’ was for ‘less important invitations’ – one knew where one was on anyone’s scale. Methinks I was about four when I committed a cardinal sin! Dad traditionally bought Mom a white blooming lilac in a pot reaching half-way up to the ceiling: quite something in the middle of a cold and dark winter . . . . I would sit on the floor admiring it for hours I think. Well, one of my parents’ very good friends decided on an impromptu Xmas Day lunch party that year to celebrate the lady’s birthday . . . children invited also. Mom and Dad wondered what on earth to take along as a present it being a holiday and quite amicably decided to make a ‘splash’ . . . called a horse-drawn carriage and had Mom’s tree taken to the lady. Except it WAS Mom’s tree to my way of thinking and it was SO unfair . . . so as we walked into this large gathering and the lady hugged and kissed both parents for the wonderful present. guess who piped up loud and clear ‘You have no right to that tree. It belongs to my Mom. It was Daddy’s present to her and you are a nasty, nasty lady to accept it . . . .’ Oops’a’daisy! Red faces all around and a very red spanked bottom on a little girl when we got home . . .