I'm sure you ALL have some stories you tell around this time of the year. Some funny, some maddening and some flat out sad...
I have some of all kinds, beginning from when I was a little girl, right up to last Christmas and dealing with a new kitten in the house who thought it was grand fun chasing those shiny balls that fell on the floor by "accident".
There was a good story from a long time ago, that I remember around this time of the year. It all had to do with my neighbors. As some of you know, we lived in the country- more like the woods- had patches on our patches and wore 'home made' clothes way before they were in style. Our closest neighbors were about 1/2 mile away thru the woods. There were 5 boys ( !!) in that family and we settled into being friends with age appropriate neighbors. We had a blast playing ourselves silly in the woods, exploring, climbing trees, playing '' war" or cowboys. Whew, when we all headed home for dinner at our individual houses, we were a bunch of worn out kids. Unlike the kids of today, our parents couldn't afford fancy items nor would they have even purchased them, had they been available. So, poor little kids that we all were, we grew up without cell phones, video games, computers, and the like. We were very lucky if one of us had a Brownie camera to use! Most times, we would paint or draw pictures which was using more imagination than any 5 kids of today.
Back to Christmas, though. It was a normal thing for us to search the month before Christmas to pick out the most wonderful trees to be cut down and set up in our living rooms for decoration. There would be paper chains made from construction paper, painted pine cones- with glitter shaken on them so they'd sparkle, cranberry garland and the old Christmas balls that our parents let us use too. I can remember the first time anyone had electric lights on their tree! Oh what a wonderful thing- electric bulbs on wire.
So, the search was on- Which tree would be chosen for Christmas? I always liked the ones that were to tall but ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, beautiful.( As long as it was turned with it's "bald" side towards the wall or corner..) Carefully, we kids would walk around a few before choosing- making sure the particular tree was usable. No empty areas- check. No bald branches- check... not to tall- Check. It took us most of the month- after rifle season for deer was over.
Once all of us had found two perfect trees, the dad's were the ones to decide if they were good enough. Then they'd cut down "their" tree, and we all would help drag it to the correct houses. That's pretty much where it all would end. We would wait til Christmas Eve to put our tree up,and then to decorate it. Our neighbors would put theirs up a couple of days in advance because life got so terribly hectic for their big family.
We had a big family too, but the extended family wasn't as huge, luckily. Ours was beautiful every year, I remember- of course, when one is just 6-7, anything with green pine needles was beautiful. We kids had to be in bed by 9 PM on Christmas Eve, so we left plenty of time for Santa to come and leave those presents! It was so hard to get to sleep but finally we all did. One time I swore I heard Santa putting gifts under the tree- but my older brother (who was good at ruining things) told me it was probably a burglar stealing the presents.
Christmas morning, we had to stay in bed until our parents got up- sheer torture! Then, breakfast and finally it was Time !!!! My parents taught us how to be patient and enjoy everyone else's gifts by being able to open one gift at a time. One person had a gift handed to them and we all watched it get opened- 'oooing and ahhhhhhhhing' at it politely. Once the gift exchanging was all done, my little brothers would either play with their new toys, or go outside to play. I'd try to help my mom and older sister making Christmas Day dinner but got bored.
One afternoon a couple of days after Christmas, we tramped up the lane to visit our neighbors ( remember- the ones with 5 boys?). oddly enough, they couldn't go out and play that day. I didn't ask why and we tramped back to our house. The next day they came to visit... We couldn't stand it and had to ask why they'd gotten in trouble so much that they had to be inside all day long.
The story was that in putting their lovely Christmas tree up a few days earlier didn't really cause the problem. The problem came when the tree was in the living room where it was always quite warm. (there had been a gorgeous stone fireplace) After a few days of their tree being inside and warm, their mother was sitting on the sofa, knitting. All of a sudden, she jumped up, screaming "BUGS!!!!!". The knitting flew one direction and she, the other. All of the boys came running down stairs wondering what the noise was all about. She began cussing in Finnish (we all knew when it was cussing and when it wasn't even if we didn't exactly understand the words)... Stomping about like a crazy woman, and cussing loudly. Everyone was staring at her as though she'd finally lost her mind when she stopped, hands on hips and said
" WHICH one of You Boys didn't check that tree !?!?!?!"
They said to us, snickering- ' we didn't have a clue what she was talking about'.
It turned out that there had been preying mantis eggs on their wonderful Christmas tree. The heat from the fireplace made the babies think it was springtime and time to hatch... which they did. ALL over the house.
And that's why our neighbors had to stay inside all day long. They were busy finding baby preying mantis'.
"Christmas Eve, bells will ring, as we gather in town to sing....''
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