Did you write about your Christmas Memories over the past week and save them to your genealogy database? You'll enjoy reading them in the future! Here are the prompts for the final 12 days.
December 10 - Christmas Gifts
December 11 - Other Traditions
December 12 - Charitable/Volunteer Work
December 13 - Holiday Travel
December 14 - Fruitcake – Friend or Foe?
December 15 - The Holiday Happenings!
December 16 - Christmas at School
December 17 - Grab Bag Blogging Christmas (your choice)
December 18 - Christmas Stockings
December 19 - Christmas Shopping
December 20 - Religious Services
December 21 - Christmas Music
December 22 - Christmas and Deceased Relatives
December 23 - Christmas Sweetheart Memories
December 24 - Christmas Eve
Since today is the 9th, I looked back to see what I had written in my blog post in 2010. The topic was "Decorations" and that was a great one for me. Even today, my husband and I disagree on the extent of our decorations. To me it's critical! Since we travel north for the holidays, my husband can't understand why I want to do all the decorations...to me it's not Christmas without them. The tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving and out come all of the decorations.
Decorating the inside of the house where we can all see and enjoy it, is one of the big thrills for me at Christmas. When I moved to Florida, I gave some of my decorations to the children (storage is at a premium here) but kept many of our Christmas decorations. When I first was married, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law invited me to attend ceramic classes with them. For the next three or four years I made lots of “stuff” much of it for Christmas. My first project was a nativity set (more of that when I talk about traditions), and then a set of Dickens’ Victorian carolers. The carolers sit on my piano each year.
Many of my other decorations have been gifts from my step-sister, a wonderful artist. Most years, in addition to the ornaments, she would provide some other unique decoration...a flexible flyer sled painted with Santa, a snowman, Santa painted onto a piece of slate, a teddy bear angel, all of which I’ve kept and put out each year.
Another part of decorating for me involves the Christmas dishes. I joke about it being my Passover as each year, right after Thanksgiving, I pull all my dishes out of my cabinets and replace them with the Christmas dishes. Since I frequently hosted family dinners at Christmas, I had twenty place settings as well as serving pieces and glassware. It was no easy job to cart everything up from the basement each year. I cut back to twelve place settings here in Florida, but it’s even more difficult to get to, as it has to be packed away and place is the small attic space over the garage. For the first time in probably thirty years, the dishes didn’t make an appearance this year. My entertaining was limited since I can’t walk (more foot surgery) so I decided to only bring down the glasses for friends who came to visit.
In reading this, perhaps it's time for a few updates. We built a new house since I wrote this blog (one I refer to as a kitchen surrounded by a few other rooms.) It has very high ceilings and lots of cabinets in the kitchen so the Christmas dishes now have a permanent home. When I got them out this year I noticed that the ceramic glaze has started to crackle on the plates so I may have to find some replacements. Perhaps I'll check on eBay after Christmas.
The purpose of the blogs is not to just share my memories, but I hope to give you some ideas. As we research our ancestors, frequently we forget to document anything about our own lives...because, well, we know all that. Perhaps our ancestors thought the same thing. I've always envied those who have family histories or diaries done by their ancestors. Perhaps in the future my descendants will enjoy reading about my life. If you have trouble thinking about what to write, another place to look for prompts is #52Stories which was created by FamilySearch in 2016. At our local genealogy club last week one of the members shared what she had written in a memoir writing workshop. Maybe that will be my resolution for 2020!
I'll be traveling for the next few weeks and may not get an opportunity to write any additional blogs. Just in case, Happy Holidays to all and...
Happy Hunting!
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