Comments on Romance Writing From the Edge: Christmas Tree Memories

Thanks to all for leaving such wonderful Christmas...

2009-12-18T09:48:23.928-05:00

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.

Loni -- Wow, that's a lot of people! Since my...

2009-12-18T09:44:26.290-05:00

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. ;)

Kansassweet43 -- That's what always happened t...

2009-12-18T09:28:33.308-05:00

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!"

Cathy, the trees in the bedrooms were small, so it...

2009-12-18T09:16:41.637-05:00

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.

Liz, we never forget our first publication, do we?...

2009-12-18T09:08:25.171-05:00

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. :)

Roni -- What fun. I always thought, growing up, t...

2009-12-18T08:59:51.096-05:00

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.

Sue -- Shame on that hospital staff! I worked in a...

2009-12-18T08:52:00.823-05:00

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

I cannot wait for this new series to arrive.. It w...

2009-12-17T22:27:44.036-05:00

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..

I remember the first year when our parents let me ...

2009-12-17T18:12:31.799-05:00

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.

That's a great memory! My father was a police ...

2009-12-17T15:21:32.454-05:00

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.

JoAnn, Thanks so much for sharing your Christmas...

2009-12-17T14:27:50.229-05:00

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

Happy Holidays, JoAnn! My favorite holiday memory ...

2009-12-17T12:16:32.549-05:00

Happy Holidays, JoAnn!
My favorite holiday memory comes from Christmas 1999. It's the night I met my husband! :-)

My favorite Christmas memory happened about 10 yea...

2009-12-17T11:45:07.075-05:00

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.

Great story about the "stolen" Christmas...

2009-12-17T08:58:54.382-05:00

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

Love your story JoAnn. Here's mine: I grew ...

2009-12-16T19:51:58.158-05:00

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!!

Every Christmas Eve we would go to my maternal gra...

2009-12-16T18:39:20.980-05:00

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.

My favorite memory is a Christmas when I got my el...

2009-12-16T15:21:04.865-05:00

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

I absolutely heart this post. I'd be hard-pres...

2009-12-16T15:13:07.672-05:00

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

I loved your story, very touching and reminded me ...

2009-12-16T14:33:33.382-05:00

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.

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the...

2009-12-16T12:37:22.723-05:00

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.

My birthday is December 22 and often gets lost in ...

2009-12-16T12:02:10.183-05:00

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

One year I wanted a live christmas tree since I li...

2009-12-16T11:31:29.181-05:00

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.)

Christmas WOW So many memories. I grew up on a f...

2009-12-16T11:08:44.955-05:00

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!!!!!

What a wonderful story. I can't even imagine a...

2009-12-16T11:04:40.557-05:00

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

My favorite holiday memory would have to be when e...

2009-12-16T10:33:09.088-05:00

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.