Lovely lazy Sunday.... in fact I am too lazy to get the decorations out for Christmas... but...wistful .
I am thinking of all the lovely memories I have of Christmas, especially as a child. My mother was
not one to decorate the house excessively. We always had a real tree with lights and ornaments and we always hung our stockings ,but although during some of my youth my father made only a professor's salary, we always felt the magic of the season.
Ours was perhaps more a cross between a pioneer Christmas from my mother's roots, and a religious Christmas from both parents. The pioneer idea was manifest in the opening of the stockings. There would be a piece or two of maple sugar and and some tangerines and some whole nuts like walnuts and almonds. These were treasures to a pioneer child in America and were to us too. There would be a toothbrush or something useful, and a simple toy like a rubber ball...also a legacy from my mother's childhood when money was scarce. As a kid, it didn't occur to me to want more.
As children we were also encouraged to make our gifts for the family. Certainly, we had hardly enough pocket money for any gift at all so most of our gifts were little cards or what we managed to make in school with the class. In fact, I hardly remember the gifts between us siblings. It was more about the mystery of Santa and the bible tales that enthralled us.
Here in Nice, with the weather so clement, it hardly seems the run-up to Christmastime except that there is some festive music coming from Seattle Classic radio this morning. I still have time to bring my house and mind around to the real spirit of the holiday. Let's see if I can do that over the next weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment