Christmas past

just a little walk down Christmas memory lane...

baby Dawn's first Christmas. i look particularly distressed about something. (probably my tummy aching, since i was pretty colicky as a wee babe and i was only about 2 months old in this photo.) that's my Dad there, rubbing my back.


much happier baby Dawn on her second Christmas!

my Gram had this snowman. you would turn his base to wind him up and then he would play "Frosty the Snowman"--and i was *obsessed* with it.


(wow, those are some pants...)


let's jump ahead a few years to about 1995... my grandparents took "eclectic tree" to a whole new level! Gram loved a Charlie Brown tree with lots of wide open spaces so she could fill them up with 50 years' worth of Christmas memories she shared with my Gramp. she would often line ornaments up, two and three deep, on the branches. and the tinsel? pieces of that would stop turning up right around the time we replaced them with Easter basket grass.


some more time travel brings us to 1998. that's my Gram on the left. the other two ladies are two of my Gramp's sisters (Aunt Emma in the middle, Aunt Esther on the right). every year, Gram & Gramp would invite his sisters to the house for some Christmas celebration. in the back left of the photo, you can see my Gram's hutch. i would drive her bat crazy as soon as Thanksgiving was done to dig out the boxes of Christmas decorations. the bottom shelf was her lighted Christmas village. the very top was a nativity. the middle two shelves were all kinds of miscellaneous Christmas collectibles that my Gram had acquired on their various travels and as gifts. to the back right of the photo was my Gram's china cabinet that she had inherited from her mother. the more delicate Christmas trinkets were tucked behind the glass door and on top was Gram's angel choir. i find myself wondering often, especially this time of year, where all my Gram's treasures are now. i only have a few ornaments and all the photos i could find...


and finally the year 2000... the last Christmas i got to spend with both my grandparents...

...the greatest gift i ever gave myself was to make sure i saved the old family photos. the trips i can take when i flip through them are worth their weight in gold.