Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas when we were children....

I remember every Christmas eve, I would wait till my parents were sleeping, and I mean wait and wait ...I made SURE they were sleeping because I wouldn't go check out the tree until about 2 or 3am!  I would listen to them and when I heard them go to bed, I would wait yet another hour or so before I went downstairs.  Every Christmas my parents would not wrap the gifts, so Santa always left me unwrapped gifts so I knew immediately what I had and I would be just overwhelmed with everything all at once!  My parents never knew about this till I was older (9 when I stopped believing in Santa) and could tell them.  Also, every Christmas season, I would take my $1 allowance I got every week and save it for about 20 or so weeks so I could buy gifts for my parents, grandparents and cousins.  I know by today's standards that doesn't seem like much but I wonder how many children actually save their allowance today for 20 weeks.  One of my favorite Christmases was when I was 13.  That year I got two gifts I just loved.  One was a ballerina doll (I still love dolls today) and the other one was a bike!  The bike was important because it was the first bike, when at age 13, I was able to ride.  The other one I got when I was younger I wasn't able to ride because my mother wouldn't let me ride it in the street in fear I'd get hit or on the sidewalk in fear I'd hit someone.  We use to go to my Aunt Floss' house every year.  My grandmother,;Nanny we called her till we were older and then she was Nan, lived there.  I loved going there every year.  My aunt use to knit things so many times I would get mittens, scarves and sweaters and I cherished them.


Now Wayne's memories about his Christmas... he said he would hear his father and grandfather putting gifts together (wagons sleds bikes), like a bicycle one year that the pedals were put on backwards.  Mom was "the guardian of the door" before/after everything was put together.  This is when he was about 6  and Warren, his baby brother, was in a crib.  At 9, he stopped believing in Santa.  He remembers each of the kids taking one gift to grandparents house to open, where the family had dinner at Gramma's house.  Wayne was one of 5 kids, all boys except for one girl (she was inbetween the boys in age).  He remembers not being able to go down to the basement b/c it had coal there.  LOL  One of his favorite gifts was a cowboy set where he would have a broomstick horse, cowboy hat, and leggings, around 4 or 5.  A neighbor kid broke it and that's when his Dad told him "if the guy is bigger than you, pick up a stick". 


I'm sure more memories will come back but that's it for now!


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