I had started to wonder about that after I finished the last post. So I'd checked and yes, it had been just a little over a year since I started doing these. I'd hoped that Stacy would be able to add her thoughts, and she has on occasion. But these have mainly been my view of things in our world.
So I'm listening to SiriusXm as always, and on Radio Classics it is Christmas week shows so all programs are of that theme. A radio show from 12/25/1958 called "The Couple Next Door" is helping me recall Christmas's of my own past.
Things I remember most from being a kid at Christmas time was the anticipation of Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. We were never allowed to open any gifts until THE morning. All the 'Santa gifts' and the stockings were set out after us kids were in bed. We'd go up to go to bed and that's when my 'vigil' started. I remember many of those Eve's where I was so excited about what to expect the next day that I'd lay awake listening to the holiday music on the radio all night long. When I was 15 I'd been given an old 8 MM movie camera and so the Christmas of 1972 was the only from those years I have a good visual record of. A couple of years ago I put the movie and photo's on DVD. It is sure something to be able to have even this brief look at lives and places, some long gone.
From way back when I was a lot younger kid, I remember that my grandmother would gather us all around one evening during the holiday time, we'd have hot chocolate and be told stories. During many Christmas's she'd go through the birth of Christ with a storyboard kind of set up that had a painted background on it and she'd use painted felt cutouts of all the characters and tell the story. She'd tell us the story and using the characters, that would stick to the background, play out the biblical event. After that was finished the 8 MM movie projector would be set up and we'd all watch all the home movies of my mom as a baby and the family back in the 1930's and 40's. We had one black and white silent Donald Duck cartoon that we'd watch, sometimes the right way, sometimes upside down and backwards if it wasn't put away correctly after the previous showing.
It is so easy now to wish that more movies and photos had been taken back then. It is also so much easier now to take those memories than it was back then!
Even though I was often up all night or up before dawn, as our kids got older I started to grumble about getting up so early. Then they started to sleep in later but Stacy would get up early and wake me and them up! Stacy got us our first video camcorder just before Thanksgiving twenty years ago in 1988. I don't think any of our kids look at this blog anymore, boring was the word most often mentioned, so they won't see that they'll be getting a shortened DVD version of that first video taped holiday, a 20th anniversary edition of seeing themselves, and us, twenty years younger. It was our first "white Christmas" at Stacy's parents home of the time in Oregon, near Medford.
Over the years every Christmas was recorded, sometimes in "Time-Lapse" sometimes in "Real-Time". While the time-lapse ones go faster, I'm glad for all the real time ones too now. You can always edit it down, but it's irreplaceable footage!!! I remember thinking then about "how boring" and "a waste of video tape", but I'd never want to loose them. Most have already been converted to DVD.
Of course being older and cynical, over the years I've read that Christ would have been born in September not December. And that the Juggernaut that has become Christmas originally started as a pagan ritual for good crops during the next year. It, the date, just became too big to move it! Not to burst anybodies bubble though, that's just what I've read.
On to Christmas 2008, Sandy called and is in Hawaii as of yesterday. She'd called to say they'd arrived without any problems and they were all going to have a late lunch. Stacy told me about it as I was looking out the window in the office at the dark and snow of our area by 4 PM. It was snowing and 8 degrees here and according to the newspaper, 80 in Hawaii. She'd gotten herself a new camera last month and has promised to take lots of photographs.
I heard from Mike this morning and he'd said that he'd also been stuck in Las Vegas when Sandy was snowed in a couple of weeks ago. Wished I'd known to let Sandy know! Sandy had flown out that morning for what she thought would be a day trip to check on a project she's working on. She got home the next morning and went to work.
My aunt in Lucerne Valley California sent me photo's of all the snow they got. I also looked at the area newspapers on-line for the old area to see what it had been like. 3 to 20 inches of snow in the old home town area. Also saw the usual, traffic, traffic, traffic. The Big Bear Calif, paper said over 1,000 cars were backed up trying to get into the town. Many of the mountain roads were closed. Ah, those days! Memories for sure, I'd have been out working in a lot of it back then, but memories neither Stacy or I miss too terribly!
Looking to 2009. Well for me, I kept forgetting a lot of important birthdays and anniversaries in 2008, so I started a Google calendar and added text message phone alerts to remind me. First at a week out and the second the day before. Shouldn't happen again!!....................... I hope.
I guess enough for this post. Hope all readers have a great holiday!
So I'm listening to SiriusXm as always, and on Radio Classics it is Christmas week shows so all programs are of that theme. A radio show from 12/25/1958 called "The Couple Next Door" is helping me recall Christmas's of my own past.
Things I remember most from being a kid at Christmas time was the anticipation of Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. We were never allowed to open any gifts until THE morning. All the 'Santa gifts' and the stockings were set out after us kids were in bed. We'd go up to go to bed and that's when my 'vigil' started. I remember many of those Eve's where I was so excited about what to expect the next day that I'd lay awake listening to the holiday music on the radio all night long. When I was 15 I'd been given an old 8 MM movie camera and so the Christmas of 1972 was the only from those years I have a good visual record of. A couple of years ago I put the movie and photo's on DVD. It is sure something to be able to have even this brief look at lives and places, some long gone.
From way back when I was a lot younger kid, I remember that my grandmother would gather us all around one evening during the holiday time, we'd have hot chocolate and be told stories. During many Christmas's she'd go through the birth of Christ with a storyboard kind of set up that had a painted background on it and she'd use painted felt cutouts of all the characters and tell the story. She'd tell us the story and using the characters, that would stick to the background, play out the biblical event. After that was finished the 8 MM movie projector would be set up and we'd all watch all the home movies of my mom as a baby and the family back in the 1930's and 40's. We had one black and white silent Donald Duck cartoon that we'd watch, sometimes the right way, sometimes upside down and backwards if it wasn't put away correctly after the previous showing.
It is so easy now to wish that more movies and photos had been taken back then. It is also so much easier now to take those memories than it was back then!
Even though I was often up all night or up before dawn, as our kids got older I started to grumble about getting up so early. Then they started to sleep in later but Stacy would get up early and wake me and them up! Stacy got us our first video camcorder just before Thanksgiving twenty years ago in 1988. I don't think any of our kids look at this blog anymore, boring was the word most often mentioned, so they won't see that they'll be getting a shortened DVD version of that first video taped holiday, a 20th anniversary edition of seeing themselves, and us, twenty years younger. It was our first "white Christmas" at Stacy's parents home of the time in Oregon, near Medford.
Over the years every Christmas was recorded, sometimes in "Time-Lapse" sometimes in "Real-Time". While the time-lapse ones go faster, I'm glad for all the real time ones too now. You can always edit it down, but it's irreplaceable footage!!! I remember thinking then about "how boring" and "a waste of video tape", but I'd never want to loose them. Most have already been converted to DVD.
Of course being older and cynical, over the years I've read that Christ would have been born in September not December. And that the Juggernaut that has become Christmas originally started as a pagan ritual for good crops during the next year. It, the date, just became too big to move it! Not to burst anybodies bubble though, that's just what I've read.
On to Christmas 2008, Sandy called and is in Hawaii as of yesterday. She'd called to say they'd arrived without any problems and they were all going to have a late lunch. Stacy told me about it as I was looking out the window in the office at the dark and snow of our area by 4 PM. It was snowing and 8 degrees here and according to the newspaper, 80 in Hawaii. She'd gotten herself a new camera last month and has promised to take lots of photographs.
I heard from Mike this morning and he'd said that he'd also been stuck in Las Vegas when Sandy was snowed in a couple of weeks ago. Wished I'd known to let Sandy know! Sandy had flown out that morning for what she thought would be a day trip to check on a project she's working on. She got home the next morning and went to work.
My aunt in Lucerne Valley California sent me photo's of all the snow they got. I also looked at the area newspapers on-line for the old area to see what it had been like. 3 to 20 inches of snow in the old home town area. Also saw the usual, traffic, traffic, traffic. The Big Bear Calif, paper said over 1,000 cars were backed up trying to get into the town. Many of the mountain roads were closed. Ah, those days! Memories for sure, I'd have been out working in a lot of it back then, but memories neither Stacy or I miss too terribly!
Looking to 2009. Well for me, I kept forgetting a lot of important birthdays and anniversaries in 2008, so I started a Google calendar and added text message phone alerts to remind me. First at a week out and the second the day before. Shouldn't happen again!!....................... I hope.
I guess enough for this post. Hope all readers have a great holiday!
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