Sentimental Sunday: Christmas

My family always had a real Christmas tree when I was growing up.  Always.  We went every year the day after Thanksgiving to pick it out, always from the same Christmas tree lot.  A lot of the time we chose a tree a little too big for our living room ceiling, and the poor angel at the top was always mushed into the ceiling.  We had a nativity set that went under the tree.  It was an old, old thing, made out of cardboard, that had little pop up slots to hold the pieces.  I believe my great great grandparents bought it when they came to the U.S. from Russia.  My mom still has it, and she puts it up every year.  It's pretty beat up, and a couple of the smaller pieces (a lamb and a tree, I think) are missing because the cats would sometimes run off with them.

My favorite part of tree decorating was the tinsel.  I'm not talking about the crappy tinsel you buy now, I mean the old tinsel that was really thin and full of static, that would cling to your hands while you put it on the tree.  I loved that stuff, and I haven't found it since I was a kid.  My mom eventually banned tinsel in our house, because she was sick of picking it up everywhere--it would cling to us if we walked close to the tree, and it would stick to the cats especially.  Plus the cats liked to eat the tinsel, and occasionally throw it up on the living room floor.  So at some point in between the tinsel ban and my adulthood, that particular type of tinsel . . . disappeared, I guess.  (Does anyone else remember this, or am I the only one?)

On Christmas Eve, we always piled in the car and drove around Kingman looking at Christmas lights.  This was always the most fun, and it's something we still do--now usually in two cars and with a particularly adorable newest family member.  After the lights, we each got to open one gift.  Then we'd lie on the floor in front of the tree, in our PJ's, and my dad would read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas to us.  Then we'd set up milk and cookies for Santa, and open the door on our fireplace.  The fireplace was really more like a stove, and we insisted the door be left open so that Santa could get out.  Our living room had an open doorway (kind of an arch) and my parents always hung a bed sheet across it so we wouldn't peek in if we got up in the middle of the night.

Christmas Day we didn't have many set traditions.  Gifts, of course, and dinner, and usually visiting our grandparents.  Other than that, it was a lazy kind of family day.

To anyone reading this, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!  Enjoy yourself!