Christmas Memories

When I thought about the Christmases of my childhood, I remembered Christmas Eve services at the church and then coming back to the house to celebrate Jesus’ birthday along with the neighbours. We had a cake and the children enacted the Christmas story as the adults read it and we all sang Christmas carols. What a fun time. And it didn’t cost a lot of money.

The Christmas stocking is the part that stands out most for me from my childhood. There were always oranges, hard candies, and small wrapped gifts. You knew that there would be certain things that only “Santa” could have brought because those things were never in the house all the time. The stockings were so special. My children had special “toe” stockings made by their grandmother. Each child had their own with their name on it.

There are two particular Christmas presents that stand out in my mind from my childhood. One was doll clothes that were hand made by my mother in secret and one was a tape recorder that my dad gave me and addressed to his “Pineapple Princess”. That was the year I was in Grade 8. It was my welcome to my teenage years.

I got thinking about how Christmas was much simpler back in the early 19th and 20th century and I decided that I would take some time to create a gift for my family members and my extended family members. I found some old Christmas Carols and other booklets as well as some public domain materials, some short stories, some craft ideas, some recipes and some resources, and put them together as a gift for my family. I had so much fun that it was hard to know when to stop. There was so much more I could have added…more stories, more recipes, more memories. I have a feeling that I will be building on this over the next few years.

I truly think that the best memories and gifts are homemade.

I remember two particular presents that I gave to my two boys as well. One was a small model of the starship Enterprise which was the one thing that my oldest child played with the most. It cost less than $5.00, but it was important to him. The other one was a duvet cover that I made for my youngest son. It was a Canadian flag. His reaction was priceless…. “Mom, how did you do this without me knowing? How could you sew this without me seeing it or seeing any of the material? When did you do this?” He wrote an essay at school and said that his most favourite thing was his duvet cover.

I made sweaters recently for my two daughters. They were the same sweater but in two different colours. Each of them appreciated the fact that I had spent the time to make them something special.

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