We usually begin setting up our Christmas tree -- which takes five days to put up and decorate -- Thanksgiving weekend. But this year, because we've been away from home until Sunday night, we're going to finally get started today. Growing up in Oregon's Cascade Mountains, I loved going out in the woods every December to cut trees. Along with getting a tree for our living room, we'd also get a one for every bedroom, my classroom, and for the roof, which my dad, who's pictured here carrying a tree down a mountain, said was a Scandinavian custom he picked up while living in Minnesota. He claimed it meant welcome.
Because it often took all day to find the perfect living room one, my mother would pack a lunch and a huge thermos of hot cocoa and we'd make a snow day of it. Usually the best trees would be at the top of the mountain and hugely tall; Daddy would cut them down and, trudging through knee-deep snow, we'd take the top 7-8 feet home. Any thin spots, he'd drill holes and insert spare branches into them. I later taught my sweetie to do the same thing, though when we were living in Phoenix, we bought our trees, which were, ironically, shipped from Oregon.
When I was in the 3rd grade, I stole a Christmas tree. There was a poor boy, Benny, in our class, who, for some reason we kids didn't know, lived with his grandmother -- which, along with longer home-trimmed hair and patched clothes -- made him a target for bullies. I was shocked when I learned that he'd never had a Christmas tree because his grandmother said they couldn't afford one. So, since we had so many at our house, I took him home at lunch on a day I knew my mother had my baby sisters at the pediatrician for their checkup and his grandmother wouldn't be home. Somehow Benny and I carried/dragged our tree and decorations three blocks to his tiny house leaving a trail of tinsel behind us.
His smile, when we lit it up, was brighter than the tree.
We were late getting back to school, which resulted in us both having to sit in the principal's office for a while. When my mother got home, she first thought our tree had been stolen, which was unheard of in a town and time when no one we knew ever locked their doors. I was scolded for taking the tree without asking permission, but fortunately my parents decided my gift was in the spirit of the holiday, so I avoided any dire punishment.
Benny's grandmother was initially shocked and probably embarrassed, but when my parents insisted she keep the tree, she returned the heirloom blown glass ornaments and baked us some cookies. That remains one of my best Christmas memories.
This is NOT a picture of Benny, but one I found of my sweetie in his Rudolph T-shirt while I was looking for my dad and tree photo. I'd just turned fifteen when I met and fell immediately in love with this boy. But if I'd seen him, looking so seriously cute, I would've fallen this day. So, what's your favorite holiday memory? Two people who share will win a backlist book of their choice (subject to availability), along with a The Homecoming magnet and chocolate bar. Winners will be announced on this blog on Friday as well as on my newly designed website.
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34 comments:
I loved your story!! Authors make the BEST bloggers!! I have a strange holiday memory and the strangest Christmas ever. I had an emergency C-section on Dec 22 many years ago. I was in the hosp till the 29th. I had a wonderful prime rib dinner, alone in my room on the 25th. My hubby was overseas and my fam just popped in and out as they celebrated as usual. I was the only patient on the floor after the 23rd. The staff was busy celebrating too, and didn't include me!! It was a verrry quiet holiday!! I spent most of my time visiting my 1st and only in NICU. Happy Holidays!!! Thanks, Sue
Your memories are heartwarming. How COULD your parents punish you for such an incredibly wonderful gesture.
And my favorite memory comes from all the years I lived in a small town in Maine. Every Christmas Eve the neighborhood would meet at the country store on the corner, drink hot chocolate and sing caroles. Santa would arrive and call each child by name and give us a small gift with some Christmas candy. Even after we found out our parents brought the gift to the store days before my family kept up the tradition. My brother still lives in the old neighborhood and they still gather at the store.
Merry Christmas
My aunt and uncle once bought a live tree that was too tall. So he cut the top off and wired it to the trunk at a lower level. Needless, the top of the tree had brown needles and stuck out at a crazy angle while the remainder of the tree was still lush and green. After that year, they got a fake tree that was the perfect height and didn't need "adjusting".
My uncle then invented the phrase "bah, humsh**t", which he still uses.
What a sweet story! I love it, and your wonderful pictures. My family was big into the Christmas tree. We didn't live in the country, so we had to make do with the trees sold at the hardware store, but we always picked the biggest and most expensive.
Each year our parents would take us into Philadelphia to Wanamakers Department Store, which had amazing Christmas decorations. We would go see Santa, and then my folks would let each of the kids (five of us)pick out our own Christmas ornament for the tree. Over the years, we gathered quite the collection. Those ornaments are still cherished in our family, as is the strand of random blinking Christmas lights! You can't find them anymore, and we treat them like gold.
We celebrate Hanukkah. One of my favorite memories was the year I was five, I wanted a Miss Revlon doll so badly and so did my cousin who was four. My parents told me I had to be at least 10 years old to get one. I tried to figure out how on earth I was going to wait another five years for this doll which I wanted so much! We went to my grandparents' home for the first night of Hanukkah, and my cousin and I got large boxes. We started excitedly tearing off the wrapping paper and--to my amazement and surprise--we each had gotten a Miss Revlon doll from my grandparetns!
I loved your story, JoAnn! What a great memory :). One of my favorite Christmas tree memories (although we weren't laughing at the time) was on our first Christmas as a married couple. We chose a tree together and my husband helped to cut it. We dragged it back to our little apartment, placed it in the stand and decorated for hours. It was beautiful...until it came crashing down (the stand wasn't sturdy enough), bringing most of our ornaments with it! Amazingly, one of our very favorite ones--a blown glass dinosaur--survived, and we pieced together (and glued!) a couple of others. We still have those now, 15 years later :).
I remember a week before Christmas Dad and Mom would get out the candy, oranges and baking. We would have treats and Dad taught us to peel the orange in one peel(the peel all together). He told us that the wee tiny pieces were called 'piggies' and so we always looked for one or more. This was an enjoyable time and a happy memory.
What a wonderful story about sharing your tree. And how great that the "grown ups" understood.
The first article I had published was about a friend's Christmas Tree -- her husband was in the US Navy and I met her in Bahrain. She, her tree and that first success make for a wonderful memory. Oh, and I named my dd after her little girl, too :)
Happy Christmas!
My story is not a Chrismas story but a Thanksgiving one. One that is remember every year. I the early 60s , about 5 years before my Dad passed away, we were invited to Thanksgiving at my cousins. They were a family of 4 and so were we. My cousin was going to make an 8-10 lb turkey and we were to bring the side dishes. My brother came back from military school sick, so he promised him we would bring him a plate of food.
Well, it seemed that every time someone called my cousin, they said they had no where to go, so she invited them. Right before going to her house , my Mom called and found out there were going to be over 20 for the dinner and all we had was a tiny turkey!! My Mother was already deciding to not eat so she could bring back a plate for my brother.
Once we got to my cousin's house my Dad was determined to fill every one up with the Puerto Rican version of french bread. Any one coming through the door barely had a chance to say "Happy Thanksgiving" when my Dad stepped in with freshly sliced bread and said " Have some bread, it's good".
I still laugh now. Well, it ended up being like the "manna from Heaven". Everyone stuffed themselves with food, and would you believe there was food leftover. There really is a God and miracles do happen !! Plus, we still have a good story to cherish
My favorite holiday memory would have to be when everyone stayed at my grandmothers for christmas. Everyon meaing my mom and day, two sisters, and all of my aunts and uncles and cousins. All of the kids stayed upstairs and all of the adults slept downstairs. On christmas morning everyone gathered in the living room to open presents. By the time everyone had finished opening presents the living room was packed with presents and wrapping paper so it was hard to walk around the living room. Now that everyone is living in different places its not too often that we have christmas's like that.
What a wonderful story. I can't even imagine a Christmas tree in each room, though, thinking about it, I like the idea. :-)
I don't have a story from any specific Christmas, but a theme that runs through all my childhood Christmases is the stocking. I remember the tingling anticipation as I waited in the dark for the bedroom door to open and let in that glimmer of light from the hallway. My Mom or Dad would creep into my room and place the stocking at the end of my bed. I'd feel the weight by my feet and barely be able to suppress the urge to jump up and grab for it. Of course, as soon as the door shut, I'd scramble to the end of the bed in the dark and run my hands up and down the stocking. My senses went into overload as I felt lumps and bumps of everything in the stocking and tried to guess what was there, or I'd hear the crinkling of some toy or candy.
My parents had an ulterior motive, because my brothers and I wouldn't be allowed to dig into the stockings until the morning and we were kept so busy with what we found in them that our parents ended up sleeping in until a reasonable hour.
Merry Christmas,
Cathy
Christmas WOW So many memories. I grew up on a farm in South Dakota I thought I was so lucky because my mom made all my clothes nothing store bought here! Yes I guess times were very hard but when you were 6 everything in the world looked good. This year there were just no crops and money was very very tight. I have two sisters one 10 yrs older and one 2 yrs older. My then 16 yr old just had to give us younger two a gift. She went to a neighbor who had a barn full of cats and they let her take two cats to give to my sister and my self as gifts!
When we get together we always remember the year of the cats.. for two little girls the best gift ever!!!!!
One year I wanted a live christmas tree since I lived in a house that had 10 ft ceilings and my husband at the time parents lived on 80 acres in Missouri, so he went to cut me a tree. Needless to say he brought home this huge tree (it must have been 20 feet or longer, LOL. Anyway he could only get the top 1/4 of the tree in the house.
I really enjoyed the smell of the tree, it looked so beautiful all decorated with lights and tinsel, and no ( there was no critter hiding in the branches.)
My birthday is December 22 and often gets lost in the holiday scramble. When I was a little girl, about to turn four, we had very little money. I had a sister two years old and my mom expected another baby in January.
In an attempt to make me feel special, Mom told me for my birthday present I could pick out our Christmas tree that year. We lived in southern California then, and the newest trend was flocked trees. I chose a little blue flocked tree and the pained look on my mother's face is one I still remember. She really didn't want a tiny blue Christmas tree!! But she kept her promise to her little girl. She never made that offer again.
One of my very earliest memories.
Sherry
Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Parish hall - not a creature was stirring as the Boy Scout leader stood tall: Lads - we have to do more: We have to cut Christmas Trees and donate to the poor.
Into the Klamath Forest rode the Brave 12 - in four large trucks and one tiny elf.
There was thunder on the right and thunder on the left and thunder ahead - as we charged the hordes of green soldiers who stood - fearing not where we tread.
Our brave troop did not falter - as we gamely surged to the fore - time after time after time until they were no more.
Thunder on the right and Thunder on the left- and thunder ahead - when all the smoke - had cleared, we had conquered the enemy and been well lead.
Victory was our cry and it was grand - as the Boy Scouts 12 had 500 trees for the land.
Version #2: On rode the 10 Brave Scouts, only to later be lost on an overnight camping expedition, but that's for another day and needs more work..................
Happy Holidays.
I loved your story, very touching and reminded me of what Christmas is really all about, sharing with the less fortunate. My best Christmas memory is from when I was 7 years old and my 2 sisters and I got a dog. He was so cute!
Unfortunately he got an uncurable disease about 7 months later and my parents didn't want to tell us that he had to be put to sleep so they told us that he was staying at the doggie hospital. After about a year I finally got the courage to ask what was going on and they came clean about it. Even though it ended sadly, it is still one of my favorite Christmas memories.
I absolutely heart this post. I'd be hard-pressed to name my favorite Christmas memory, but the finding, placing and trimming of the tree is right up there. To this day, I still listen for the tinkle of bells and the sound of reindeer on the roof! Oh, another is that we have always set a fire before we go to bed, ready to light on Christmas morn.
Your sweetie was cute then, and he's still cute now. :-)
Cheers
My favorite memory is a Christmas when I got my elderly mother a lot of small gifts. She was just like a small child, her face lit up with each one-just magical.
blacksnake@mchsi.com
Every Christmas Eve we would go to my maternal grandmothers house for Christmas. She had 5 children and 14 grandchildren. It was always a big gathering with food, presents, laughter and love. Every year, my father would sneak off with my sister and myself. We would make our way to Scarboughs. There he would buy my mother a bottle of Chanel No. 5. He would then buy us fresh roasted cashews. We would then drive around the Capital and Congress Ave. looking at the decorations. Our driving lasted as long as the cashews did. The year I turned 16 he snuck off without me. I was sad that I didn't get to have our special time. He said that he couldn't find me, when he was ready to go. On Christmas morning after all the gifts were opened, he had one more for me. It was my first bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume. He then admitted, with a sheepish grin, that he had purposely not taken me with him the day before. This ritual continued for every year up until this death in 1993. Before he died, he told my husband that he wanted him to continue his tradition of giving his girl perfume at Christmas. My DH has done my father proud and this year I will again give thanks for all the wonderful years I had with him. I will remember his joy and happiness. I will remember his joyful glee when we would slip away and enjoy a special moment together.
Love your story JoAnn. Here's mine:
I grew up in Southern California, still my home base, but had an old Gypsy (seriously, we’re Gypsy) grandmother (maternal). Every year our entire family celebrated on Christmas Eve by gathering at her house for dinner, gift exchange and to sing a stirring version of “Happy Birthday to You” to the baby Jesus. It was the one time each year that I was guaranteed to see all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and assorted children, in-laws and acquaintances. My grandmother passed away in 1978, but asked that the family keep up her Christmas Eve tradition. Over the next two decades the family tried, but cousins married, uncles divorced, people moved out of state, relatives fought.
In 1999, over twenty years after her death, my mom invited the whole family to our house for Christmas Eve. She’d already lost two brothers during the 90s and didn’t know how long everyone else would be around. She baked and cooked for days while I spent my time making gift bags for everyone ~ and some extra ones just in case.
On December 24th, 1999 our living room was packed with over fifty people ~ all relatives, some of them we were meeting for the first time ~ for dinner and a small gift: a token of our love and appreciation. Laughs and memories were shared, new memories were created. Photos were taken. Children found friends in newly discovered cousins.
Now it is ten years later ~ extremely hard to believe that a decade has passed. We’ve lost another uncle, a great uncle, and two great aunts. More family has moved out of the state, younger cousins have now married ~ their babies replacing the family headcount ~ and more relatives have waged war.
It’s difficult to get everyone in the extended family together but I hope that on that Christmas Eve my grandmother was somewhere above us singing along to our rousing version of “Happy Birthday to You,” happy to know that for one night her family kept true to the promise of her lifelong Christmas tradition.
Thanks for sharing yours!!
Great story about the "stolen" Christmas tree.
One of my best Christmas stories is the year my extended family who lived all over the US got together at my house and made and decorated a big batch of Christmas sugar cookies. There were cookies made of the Pope, a buffalo, and a few self-portraits in dough, which reveals just how crazy and creative my family is!
Jodelle Brohard
My favorite Christmas memory happened about 10 years ago when I went home for Christmas with my 2 month old son. My husband and I scrimped and saved to get that trip. We were stationed in Hawaii at the time, lowly SrA, and the round trip to Arizona was pretty pricey but I really wanted to get home because I wanted my Gramma to meet my precious boy. It was also the only time since we've all moved out that my mom has had all 4 kids with their kids (4 at the time) in one place. We took a zillion pictures and my favorite is my Gramma cuddling with my son. She died about a year later so those memories are precious to me. We got to visit with her one more time but that Christmas was the best. All the food and funny stories.
We always try to get home for the holidays but the military schedule doesn't always give us the wiggle room for travel. This is the first time I won't see my mom at Christmas in about 4 years and I'm feeling homesick. But we are currently stationed across the country and closer to the in-laws so they get us this year.
I'm glad you had this post because I have an excuse to dig out the photo albums and revisit all the good memories.
Happy Holidays, JoAnn!
My favorite holiday memory comes from Christmas 1999. It's the night I met my husband! :-)
JoAnn,
Thanks so much for sharing your Christmas memory! I can just see you and Benny dragging that tree down the blow, too. lol.
Wishing you and yours a truly joyous holiday season!
Faye
That's a great memory! My father was a police officer, so he had interactions with all kinds of folks. Every year he would kind of "adopt" a family in trouble and we would do a secret Santa from our family to theirs. It teachers you to appreciate what you have when you see those who cannot afford any gifts or Christmas foods.
My best Christmas memory is a pretty simple one. My husband and I were stationed overseas in Turkey. Right before Thanksgiving, our house flooded and we(along with other families in base housing) lost everything we owned.
We were devastated. We had a 3 yo and a 6 week old in a very foreign country away from our family.
As we were waiting for a new base house and trying to buy everything from scratch for 4 people, my husband took me to the village outside of the base for dinner. The restaurant owner knew us and knew of our situation.
They put on a special spread for us, doing their best to re-create American Christmas dinner items with Turkish ingredients(interesting end result ;) ), and had gifts to give to us and our children.
It was a balm to my heart, and to this day makes me tear up. Turkey is a Muslim country, so it wasn't a celebration that was ingrained into their psyche. It took real effort on their part, and they went out of their way to try and make Christmas something to remember.
I remember the first year when our parents let me and my brother open presents at midnight instead of waiting till Christmas morning. We try to keep that tradition.
I cannot wait for this new series to arrive.. It will seem like such a long time.. but it will be worth the wait..
One of my favourite Christmas memories is around the time I was about 18 or 19 can't remeber the exact age..It got late into December and we still had not had our Christmas tree up.. We did not have a real one, but an artifical one.. So one night after my oldest brother and I had been out doing some early celebrating and we both decided we were going to put up the Christmas tree. Mind you this was at 11pm at night... Mom and Dad were out too.. Where we put our Christmas tree was in a corner of the living room near where the hall lead down to the bedrooms. Now the tree had to stick out just a tad towards the hallway, and Dad came home, did not turn on the living room lights and walked right into the tree..cursing and swearing, he woke up my yonger three brothers and had my mother who was in the bathroom, which was between the living room and kitchen running to see what was happening. Rick and I had our rooms upstairs, so we had no idea what had happened until the next morning.. We laughed about it later, but dad was real ticked at the time..
Sue -- Shame on that hospital staff! I worked in a Delivery room and maternity ward to help pay Sweetie's grad school. I CERTAINLY would've celebrated with you! Even brought you cookies.
Nina, I LOVE that tradition! Very Waltonish. It's always why I enjoy writing about small towns. My dad was a pilot member of Search and Rescue. We always used to have our "community" Santa Christmas in an airport hanger with the rest of the S&R kids. Santa would arrive -- natch -- in a plane.
Susan, LOL about your tree. Seems it would've been easier for your uncle just to cut it off at the bottom to the proper height. That also had me wondering why our "stuck in" extra limbs didn't turn brown. Maybe because, by stripping the bark and sticking them into the truck, they were able to get water for just a couple weeks, anyway.
Vanessa, I've always wanted to hear/see Wanamaker's famous organ. I think I first read about it in a book as a little girl. I did the same thing with our son. Every year he'd get to pick out an ornament and I'd get two, one I could give him when he grew up for his own tree (which I did), and one that we'd keep. I still have the way ugly holy man/king he chose when he was four because he said it looked like "Booger King." LOL
Roni -- What fun. I always thought, growing up, that Jewish kids had a better deal because they got gifts for so many days. I had a "Toni" doll named for the tonette perms my mother used to maim my hair with. I wonder if Revlon dolls were much the same deal.
Marilyn -- Any couple who'd have a glass dinosaur as a Christmas tree ornament, and survive a first Christmas tree crash, is obviously meant to be together. Our first year -- 44 yrs ago! -- I made most of the decorations, because grad students have no money, but we did buy a box of really cheap glass balls. We still have a half dozen of those, which I put at the top of the tree, because they're so tiny. They've also lost their shine, but they bring back so many wonderful memories, they'll be coming back to the PNW with us.
Robinl -- I LOVE that your Dad was involved in the cooking and baking. Your story reminded me that we always used to get tangerines in our stockings. During a time when fresh fruit wasn't available year round as it is now, that was always just a treat! Even more than the chocolate Santa.
Liz, we never forget our first publication, do we? How cool yours is a Christmas story, so it adds to the season to think about it every year.
Yvonne -- LOL about your clever dad filling people up with great bread so there'd be food left over for your brother. And so like a mom to decide not to eat so your brother could.
Nicole -- I grew up with four much younger sisters, so we always had tons of paper scattered all over. Although we always had one son, I sort of overbought to create that same look. He did the same with his two kids, who got WAY too much because their mother had five brothers and sisters who all sent stuff, too.
When he remarried a few years ago, we spent Christmas morning with him and his new wife -- whose small D.C. rowhouse was gorgeous Architectural Digest minimalist and always incredibly neat -- looked stunned by the amt of paper, boxes, and ribbon two kids and four grownups could create. In the beginning, she tried to keep up with it, then finally just gave up. I kept expecting to hear a whimper, but she got through it. :)
Cathy, the trees in the bedrooms were small, so it wasn't as crazy as it sounds. Though I do usually decorate every room here, even the bathrooms, though they don't all have trees. My parents did the same thing with the stockings. We weren't allowed to come out of our rooms until they called us, but we could open our stockings, which kept them busy and would let them sleep. I still wake up around 5 on Christmas morning, in anticipation.
My sweetie was a little surprised by that, but he's grown used to it. Our son, otoh, would make me crazy, because he'd actually sleep in until 7 or 8. Even now, as an adult dad, he insists on showering and dressing before gift opening, which drives me crazy.
Jo -- Wow. You had a Little House on the Prairie Christmas! I always wanted a cat, and got some of my own once I grew up, but my mother wouldn't let me because she believed that old superstition that cats "stole the breath" from babies. So, I can imagine how super special that must have been for you!
Sherry -- your mom was obviously a saint because a blue flocked tree is a lot worse than an ugly ornament that looks like "Booger King!" I see in some catalogs that aluminum and colored flock trees are -- yikes! -- coming back.
Kansassweet43 -- That's what always happened to us! LOL. Trees look so much smaller in the "wild" than they do in a living room! Sort of like buying what looks like a small couch in the furniture store then getting it home and realizing you now have the couch that ate your living room!
Tom -- Ah, the annual Boy Scout Christmas Massacre. My sweetie went on a few of those in the Klamath mts, as well.
Ah, Maria, that's so sad. But nice you had a puppy and I'm glad it ended up a good memory!
My sweetie's parents did the same thing, but he was old enough they should have told him. The dog they'd bought him when he was a toddler, and would follow him around in the snow on early morning paper routes was ancient in dog yrs when he went off to college, but he was stubbornly sure "Nipper" would be okay.
His parents humanely had the fox terrier put to sleep, but told sweetie that he'd run away. I always believed the story, too, until a few years after we were married and his best friend finally told him the truth. Which was much better than all those years he'd spent worrying about what Nipper being out there lost and hurt.
Elen, I ALWAYS listened for Santa. Have to admit, I still track him on Norad. :)
Anonymous -- Having volunteered for years in a nursing home, I can so appreciate what a special time that must've been for your elderly mom unwrapping all those gifts! It would've taken her back to such fond memories.
Ztalaldy80 -- Oh, your story made me cry! But in a good way. My mother always wore White Shoulders. My sweetie got me my first bottle of Shalimar for Christmas and it because my "signature scent." So much so, that when I was in a department store with my then 8 yr old son, I spritzed another scent on my wrists and gave it to him to smell. He wrinkled up his nose. Then I spritzed on some Shalimar and he said, "Now THAT'S what a mom's supposed to smell like!"
Loni -- Wow, that's a lot of people! Since my sweetie and I moved away from home when we got married -- Oregon to AZ -- and we were young (18 and 21) and couldn't afford the time and money to go back and visit for years, we've gotten used to having small holidays. Some years I think there's more fun in the preparations in the weeks leading up to Christmas -- him drinking egg nog while watching me put up my villages while we play carols, and decorating the tree, remembering when and where we got each decoration, him doing decorations outside for the neighbor kids to enjoy, etc, than the actual day itself.
Jodelle -- I will never experience a Christmas again without thinking of Pope and buffalo cookies! LOL Thanks for sharing!
Anna -- That's lovely that you made the effort to get back home. I can imagine how much it meant, not only to your mom, but your gramma and how lovely it is that you have those photos to remember. That's one of the reasons I've come to love scrapbooking. Not because it preserves photos. But because it saves memories for future generations. (Like Sweetie in Rudolph shirt, lol)
Meljprincess -- Sounds as if you got the BEST present!
Faye, merry merry back to you up there in Snow Hell, darlin'. Hope this upcoming year is your best ever! xo
Anonymous -- I loved your father's Secret Santa story. But your Turkish Christmas is especially so wonderful for this season that should revolve around love and giving. (and not just things that can be bought in stores.) What wonderful people those were, and yes, I can imagine the flavor mix would be interesting. :)
Jane -- We always open a gift on Christmas Eve night, something that began when we'd get home after Midnight Mass and it would seem like Christmas.
Kathleen -- That's so funny. You and your brother should've gotten points for putting up the tree, though. That couldn't have happened in my family because my parents were always awake making sure I didn't miss curfew. ;)
Thanks to all for leaving such wonderful Christmas memories. We're not having the grandkidlets this year, so your sharing added a lot to our holiday season. (I've read the stories to sweetie.)
Fortunately, we used a random selection process, because I never could have chosen my favorite stories. So, the winners are Sue Hussein, and Yvonne. If you'll just email me your mailing addresses (link's at my website -- joannross.com -- and your choice of book, we'll get those out to you.
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