Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…not even a flurry, yet!! 😐

I have already shared a couple of favorite memories, like going to Midnight Mass and the year I received the stuffed monkey/chimp.  I have soooo many good memories of Christmas growing up.  But I think my all time favorite is how we used to visit family or friends, or had people over to our house.

My dad kept in contact with a couple of friends that he grew up with, and as their families grew we would all get together with them a couple of times during the year.  Even after all of us kids grew up, they would still get together, from time to time.  In my pre-teen years, I would always look forward to the time we would have the two families over for Christmas.  (this may or may not have had anything to do with their good-looking sons 😉 ).  We would have the house all decorated, and my mom would have already baked all the cookies, so she could make trays of cookies.  I always knew she was preparing for company because when she returned from grocery shopping there would be extra bags of chips, and dip and several liters of pop.  This was a pretty big deal for us, because we ordinarily did not have pop in the house, only during the holidays.  My mom is really good at making things look nice…whether it’s decorating the house, or serving food for holidays, everything was placed just so.  This was all before you could learn from Martha Stewart or get ideas from Pinterest.  Maybe it’s a trait you can inherit, or else we just learned it by helping my mom, because my sister and I both have it, and I see it in my daughter as well.  Anniehow…Usually we would have our friends over in the evening, and just serve snacky foods and cookies.  It was usually a pretty late evening, as the grown-ups spent the evening reminiscing and catching up.  The kids and teens would be in the basement.  I was at that age where I wasn’t old enough to hang out with the teens, and too old for the younger kids. I usually got stuck with the younger kids, while the teens had fun listening to music, playing foosball, or just hanging out.  Still it was an enjoyable evening for all.

I also remember going to my Aunt’s house for the holidays.  This would be my dad’s sister.  We usually spent time with my mom’s family on Christmas Eve.  But one thing that stands out for me, is how we dressed when we went to visit someone or had company over to our house.  We didn’t dress in jeans and T-shirts, we wore our “good clothes.”  It wasn’t that they were extravagant or fancy, usually for my sister and I it was a pair of dress pants, and a nice sweater, or this cool green jumpsuit that my sister wore when they were oh so stylish in the 70s.  My brother’s would have on dress slacks and button shirts.  Of course we fussed about it, but we did it, and it was actually nice.  We would exchange small gifts with all our extended family as well.  I remember one year I received a Levi doll.  He was made of Levi jeans and had all the authentic Levi labeling.  Something I never heard of or even seen before, but it became one of my favorites.   This is a picture of one being sold on eBay.  My mom still has mine, but he is packed away. He is pretty worn, since I had  him with me whenever I could.  I think I was probably 6 or 7 when I got him.

Looking back, it seems things were so much simpler then, and yet still fun.