More Random Christmas Memories

My siblings and I used to put on a Christmas pageant for our parents. I was always Mary, my brother, Joel, was Joseph, my brother, Brandon, was usually a shepherd, and my baby sister, Emily, was Baby Jesus. We wore robes and tied bath towels on our heads. The manger was our red vinyl beanbag chair. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.


Here are the four of us on one little sled: Me, Joel, Brandon and Emily






My dad always used his pocket knife to unwrap his gifts, and offered it to anyone who had trouble with ribbon on a gift or tape on a box. Nothing says “Christmas” like a small, sharp knife.

Santa Claus always put fresh oranges, pears and apples in our stockings, along with nuts still in their shells. Inevitably, our stockings were full of a rotting, gooey fruit and nut science experiment about the middle of January.

My mom would usually put away one gift for each of us until New Year’s. I grew up thinking that everyone got a gift on New Year’s.

My dad would take us caroling around the neighborhood, and then make his famous hot cocoa for us when we got home.


Dad pulling me on a sled in the back yard ~ 1973




We children usually all slept in my room on Christmas Eve. A couple kids in the bed and a couple in sleeping bags on the floor. Lots of giggling! Chidren's anticipation of Christmas morning so thick you could cut it with a knife (maybe my dad’s pocket knife). I don’t know how late we usually stayed awake, but I do remember how difficult it was to go to sleep on Christmas Eve.

Our family always had Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve evening, and cold turkey sandwiches on rolls on Christmas Day.

Watching all the Bass/Rankin stop motion Christmas specials on television… and the cartoons (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol…). This was back before people had VCR’s in their homes, or cable television for that matter. We waited all YEAR to see these specials, and if we missed a special, we MISSED it until the next year.

My mom’s side of the family always had a Christmas party in December. Everyone brought pot luck to eat. We all SANG carols together, while someone in the family accompanied on the piano. We drew names each year for who we would give a gift to the next year. Santa Claus almost always showed up to these parties. No one sings at family Christmas parties anymore. Maybe that’s a tradition I can start with my kids and my siblings (hint, hint).

Ice skating at the Provo Boat Harbor.

Sledding down the hill (road) in front of our house.

Tubing by the beaver farm across the street from our house or Japs Hill. (Sorry, I know that’s politically incorrect, but that’s what that hill has been called since my dad was a little kid in the 1940’s.)

Building snowmen with my dad in the back yard and not thinking anything of the fact that he NEVER wore gloves.


Joel, Frosty and Me ~ 1977






And Christmas music... so much Christmas music! Jim Reeves, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Burl Ives, and on and on, and it was playing in our house beginning November 1. I know this is where I got my love for Christmas music.


Dad (without gloves OR jacket) building a snowman with Joel and Brandon ~ 1979

Christmas Morning Traditions ~ So Many Christmas Memories

Christmas morning was full of traditions in my family. As a kid, a lot of these “traditions” seemed more like “rules” though. Once I had walking, talking kids of my own, who were very literally bouncing off the walls on Christmas morning, chomping at the bit to get to the presents… well, I suddenly understood my parents’ traditions.

First rule, er... I mean tradition: We children waited in our rooms until after we heard dad go downstairs to light a fire in the fireplace. This kept all the kids under control and out of my parents’ hair until THEY were ready to start the craziness.

Second tradition: The family ate Christmas breakfast (cinnamon toast and orange juice) together. This gets something besides candy (although cinnamon sugar on toast is a little iffy here) inside the kids’ tummies before they dump out the stockings and start gorging on chocolate and candy canes.

Third tradition: Dad, and ONLY DAD, went downstairs to get the home movie camera ready to go. This was not a video camera. This was an old silent home movie camera with a GIANT light affixed to the top for indoor lighting purposes. The kids lined up at the top of the stairs with mom supervising, and when dad had the camera rolling, we went down the stairs in a somewhat orderly fashion and checked out the gifts Santa Claus had brought. Let me tell you, that light on top of the camera made it pretty difficult to even make it down the stairs, let alone see what Santa brought for us. I think we all were seeing blue halos for at least a couple hours every Christmas morning. My parents wanted to get all our reactions on film. I’m glad they did. Those old home movies are so much fun to watch now.

Fourth tradition: We all sat together and each took turns opening gifts. This was so my parents could see our reactions to each of the gifts. And it made the whole holiday last longer than if it were just a big free-for-all.

Now I’ve never been as organized and with it as my parents were. I tried to make my kids stay in their rooms until I got up on Christmas morning, but around age six, they weren’t so compliant in this department. So Santa Claus started wrapping his gifts so the kids couldn’t just walk into the living room and see what they got. I don’t really do breakfast, so how can I expect my kids to, especially on Christmas morning?! I’m lucky if I can manage to make a cup of coffee before everything turns to chaos.

I’ve never had a video camera, so I try to remember to leave the regular camera in the living room on Christmas Eve so I can at least get a few snapshots to remember the moments as they fly past. The one Christmas morning tradition that I have held tightly to is the taking of turns to open gifts. I spend a lot of time and money picking out gifts, and I want to see my kids’ reactions to them.

Most people want to do “better” than their parents did. When it comes to Christmas, there is no way possible that I could do better. I can’t even do “mediocre” compared to them, they set the bar so high. Congratulations, guys! You’ve bested all of your children! And I love you for it!

I Know Santa Claus (Even More Christmas Memories)

Santa and me ~ 1974


My dad is Santa Claus. Yeah, I know yours is too. But my dad had a custom made (by my master seamstress of a grandmother) Santa costume, complete with authentic Santa beard and granny glasses, that he would wear and come visit us when we were kids. Now don’t ask me where he changed into this costume. I STILL don’t know. Maybe in the car or in a phone booth (we had phone booths back then, you know)… maybe in our old chicken coop…

But I digress. We kids would all be in the house doing our own things, mom would be making dinner or whatever… and there would be a knock at the door. And who would it be? Santa Claus!!! My dad was such a good Santa Claus that he could visit his OWN children, and they didn’t suspect it was him. He would have us sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas (damn sneaky, dad), and then give us each a candy cane. My mom would make sure to have the camera ready so we could pose for a group picture. And then he’d be off into the night. Dad would show up later and be really surprised that he missed Santa Claus… again. Dad played Santa Claus for other people in the neighborhood too occasionally, but he never did parties or got paid to do it. What a character. He continued playing Santa for his grandchildren after they came along.


Santa with my baby, Anthony ~ 1988


My grandma also made herself a Mrs. Claus costume that was adorable. I am still not sure where exactly she wore it, or why… more questions I need to ask my dad, I suppose. But don’t be alarmed if you see Santa Claus driving around Springville in a Buick… it’s just my dad. He’ll probably reach into his pockets and give you a candy cane and an orange, and ask you what you want for Christmas.



Grandma in her Mrs. Claus costume

More Christmas Memories

The Tree(s)

Prior to my teenage years, we usually had not one, but TWO Christmas trees in the house. The one placed in the front room was always a real tree, sometimes flocked, and usually decorated with the more formal ornaments.

This is me in front of the "front room" tree in 1973


The other tree was placed in the basement family room. Most of the time it was real, but I remember an old “bottle brush” artificial one that we used a couple times. The basement tree had the funky old, giant bulb lights with reflectors, the bubbling candle lights, and a gaudy lit-up tinsel star on top. The ornaments were all the favorites… snoopy in various sledding, skating and other winter activities… handmade styrofoam/napkin/Mod Podge ornaments… ornaments that we children had made with Dixie cups and foil, Christmas cards and colored toothpicks, wooden cutouts and school pictures… my mom’s ornaments from her childhood… and usually a LOT of tinsel. This was always my favorite tree. The formal one looked nice, but I loved digging out the old, sentimental ornaments. And those giant lights with floral shaped foil reflectors… you can’t get more nostalgic than that!


This is me in front of the "basement" tree, also in 1973.

I have very vivid, yet dreamlike, memories of hanging out in the front room, Dean Martin crooning Christmas tunes on the console stereo, the smell of fresh pine hanging heavily in the air, the only light in the room was the soft glow coming from the many strings of Christmas tree lights my dad had strung all over the floor in an effort to detangle the cords and check the bulbs. It was magical.

We used the same tree skirts every year. It was tradition. My mom had sewn them out of red and white flannel fabric and embellished them with silver rick-rack and little foil holly berries and leaves. Over the years, these skirts have gotten kind of ragged, but in my mind, they’re still the standard by which all other tree skirts will be judged.

Gifts we were planning on giving to friends, extended family, etc., were placed under the front room tree along with any gifts we received from our friends, neighbors, etc. The basement tree was for our immediate family’s presents and for Santa Claus… why? Because the fireplace was in the basement family room and that’s how Santa got into the house… and that’s where you hang your stockings!


The Décor (Doesn’t everyone have a life-size Nativity in their front yard?)

My father did the more traditional outdoor Christmas decorating… colorful lights strung on the roof, in the windows and on the branches of the front yard trees… he also went above and beyond what most people did in their yards back then... every year he built a life-size stable in the front yard. In this stable was a life-size Nativity made from mannequins, a wooden manger and a large plastic baby doll to represent the newborn Jesus. There were bales of hay, evergreen branches, a large spotlight and a big sign that had a hand painted Bible page and scripture. It was a sight to behold. I wish I could find a picture of it. People would drive slowly down our street and park in front of the house to look at the Nativity. My sister, Emily, has told me that when she was a child, she wondered why people would stop and look at our yard at Christmastime. She assumed everyone had a Nativity.

When I was in my early teens, we were hit with snowstorm after snowstorm one December. The snow piled up higher and higher on the roofs and the stable ended up caving in. When my dad was able to clear it all out, he noticed that when the stable caved in, all the mannequins (Joseph, Mary, Wise Men, Shepherds) had fallen into the center covering the manger and protecting the Baby Jesus doll in the manger. The mannequins were broken beyond repair. The hand painted sign was split literally in half. The stable lumber was torn and broken and could not be used again. But the manger and Baby Jesus came out of the disaster unscathed. True Story… It was a Christmas Miracle…

Christmas Memories

My parents are Christmas People. They can barely wait ‘til after Halloween to start listening to Christmas music. They put up the tree (always a REAL one) the weekend after Thanksgiving. They’ve sent out literally thousands of Christmas cards over the years, and give gifts to everyone, including all the neighbors and the mailman. I am so grateful to them for instilling in their children a love for the holidays. There is no feeling better to me than the Christmas spirit.

Even when I was a child, I loved Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day. Of course I loved getting all the great gifts, but for me the FEELING of Christmas was better than any brightly wrapped gift. We weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, and some years I know my parents struggled financially especially around the holidays, but every Christmas was wonderful and memorable because the emphasis was never put on the gifts as much as the traditions and doing things as a family. This post and the next few will be about the holiday traditions my parents introduced and encouraged and my own childhood amalgam of Christmas memories.

Over the River and Through the Woods

The kickoff of the holiday season in my house was always Thanksgiving. Most Thanksgivings while I was growing up were celebrated at my Grandma’s house in Ogden. We traveled over I-15 and through most of four counties, but there were no rivers or woods to be found. My dad’s brothers and sister and their respective families always came too. I remember getting into Grandma’s sewing room closet with my cousins in search of games to play as we waited for what seemed like eternity for dinner to be ready. I don’t remember much about dinner itself, just the family all being together and getting to play with my cousins.

With Grandma at her house - 1980 (Lyn, Brandon, Joel and Emily)

After Thanksgiving dinner, we would wait for darkness to fall and then pile in the car and travel to downtown Ogden to “see the lights”. Since 1962 (it’s older than I am!!!), Ogden City has been transforming its downtown park into Christmas Village from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. This was a very important tradition in our family. The “village” is beautiful and fun and full of cottages with animated elves and other things children adore. We had to bundle up like we were literally visiting the North Pole because one does not drive through this display. One WALKS. After wandering through the village and seeing everything there was to see, we would get in line for Santa’s Castle. This was the best “Santa’s Helper” on the face of the earth. After sitting on his lap and whispering your Christmas wish in his ear, he would give you a candy cane, and I swear that those candy canes were made with the best peppermint in the universe... peppermint grown deep under the ice at the North Pole, and harvested by specially trained peppermint elves.



As a child, the Christmas Village was simply magical. A city park transformed into a Christmas paradise! The best part of the Christmas Village and Santa’s Castle (for the parents, that is) is that it was completely free. The generous people who put this whole thing on did it for the community and for the sake of tradition. They didn’t even have the sale of “professional” pictures taken with Santa Claus. If parents wanted pictures of their kids on Santa’s lap, they had to remember to bring their own cameras and take their own snapshots.



When I was a teenager, we started having Thanksgiving dinner at our house just for our six-member family instead of going to Grandma's house,and for the first few years it just didn’t feel like Thanksgiving. Eventually, I adjusted to the change (man, I hate change!). We still went to “see the lights” in Ogden sometime during the holidays though. I even took my older two children once when they were small. I’m definitely going to have to make the trip this year with my younger kids.

More memories tomorrow…