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Holiday Cheer Thread

Yeshuasdaughter

Yeshuasdaughter

You know, that one lady we met that one time.
V.I.P Member
In this time of cold and dark, let's think of the things that make us smile. Fond memories of holidays past.

Tell a little story, or infodump, about one of your sweetest holiday memories.

Let's share the warmth of the season together.
 
I remember, around the tail end of the 1980s, that we had a great big Christmas. The leaves were put into my grandmother's grand dining room table. And across it, her finest heirloom china and silver, brought over from Scotland, was filled to the brim with all sorts of delicacies. There was a turkey, and a ham. There were five different pies. There was even a kid's table. This meant a lot to me, as I was usually all alone at our desert homestead. No other children to play with.

So many adults, from both sides of the family. People were sleeping everywhere. Crowded in beds, couches, and floors, over the expanse of three trailers. A few even slept in their cars.

It was a wonderful holiday, with gifts piled high under the tree. And there was so much love all around.
 
When I was a kid, we always had a proper Christmas tree with real candles. My job was to polish the apples. The small, red apples had to go into the tree first, to weigh down the twigs. Then the straw stars made by my mother and her siblings and the various trinkets that had been collected over the decades.
And my Grandpa carefully placed the candle holders, to make sure it wouldn't all burn up.

Then on Christmas Eve all of us kids had to go to the other room and wait until the little silver bell sounded, and then we'd come back into a dark room with one the dozens of candles burning on the Christmas Tree. It was the most magical kind of light I have ever seen.

In my mind, it's all a unique mix of sense impressions: the candle light glittering on the ornaments, the scent of the wax and the pine needles, the sound of of the bell and then the carols we'd sing.
I left the Christian religion 20 years ago, but I can still quote Luke 1, 1-20 word by word because my Grandpa always read it to us. (The old Lutheran translation... If anyone reads a more modern translation to me it just sounds wrong)
 
Christmas was always my Mom's favorite part of the year.
She went out of her way to add those special touches of magic to it with everything she did to prep for it.
We would awake to a Christmas morning like many children did in wonder of what gifts we were going to find under our tree.
We had to wait in our rooms until we were given the signal that we were good to go, then the real fun could begin.
At one point in time, there were five of us kids, so you could imagine the frenzy when we finally got to see what Santa had left the night before.

They were always live trees, decorated with ornaments that were gathered over the years and always had those incandescent bulbs that got hot as blazes. It still looked like magic every year.
The morning of the big day always greeted us with first our stockings that were filled with trinkets, cookies candy and always a fresh tangerine.
When I was a kid, they weren't in the supermarkets year round, so gaining one in December was a special treat.
To this day, when I give gifted to kids, they are always handed over with a few tangerines too, just to uphold Mom's tradition.
The tree was watered daily to prolong it's beauty and an attempt to not have it shed it's needles quite so quickly.
The trees would stay up and lit until two weeks after New Years, and I remember the sorrow of seeing it taken down and relegated to the firepit.
My Mom left this world for her next when she was just 60.
My pink warrior fought a valiant battle for seven years before her maker decided it was time for her to move to his kingdom to continue her work.
Mom always started her holiday shopping the day after Christmas, She passed about a week after my 42nd birthday in mid April.
As sick as she was, she made no exception on her last Christmas with us.
Christmas morning that year was a somber one without her in our lives.
It was very hard to accept that we would never see her eyes when she watched us open our gifts on Christmas morning.
Little did we know it, but that Christmas she had a gift for each and every family member, all wrapped, labeled and ready to go.
It was a Christmas I will never forget.
Although she wasn't physically in the room with us, she was still there, watching over all of us on her favorite holiday.
It has been nearly 20 years since our final Christmas with her, but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her.

To this day, I still carry my own edition of Christmas, decorating and giving gifts to all who are close to me.

Her birthday was exactly two months after Christmas, so each year I still get another family tradition, a Bethel Bakery birthday cake and share it with her on her other special day.
 
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For me Christmas cheer is getting to indulge my lifelong medieval interest in some way. I get some new (vintage) plastic toy soldiers, I watch some old films. One in particular 'Ivanhoe' is a favorite as me and my Mom watched it alone one Christmas evening after everyone else went to sleep. It's mainly great escapism.

I also follow the British Royals as a form of escapism as my own country's news is too depressing and want to wish everyone a warm and peaceful British Royal's Christmas. As much fun now as in 1100 AD.

Limoges1.webp



;)
 
This cheap old candy tin was given to me by my Mom on her last holiday with us
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The paint is faded and the ribbon is dusty, but it came from her so I will have it always
It is still a part of my Christmas decorating.

20221221_175834.webp

The wooden tops were given to me in the early 60s, and I got the gyroscope in the early 70s.
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Getting a tree from the forest and decorating it is the foundation of my Christmas memories. Here are three ornaments that are more than 40 yeas old. The first one is a blown out egg decorated with sequins. My mother would always place these delicate ornaments at the top of the tree and then let the wee children go to town on the bottom 3 feet, which is as high as we could reach. The eggs have certainly broken over the years, but there are several that remain and they are approximately 50 years old!

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^ This was always my favorite ornament, and everyone would save it for me to put on the tree. It started out on the very bottom branches, but as I grew, it moved up the tree. Now, the young children in my family decorate the tree, and the green lion has returned to the bottom branches for now.
 
I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania in a fairly rural setting about 20 miles away from Pittsburgh.
We were taken there for Christmas shopping by streetcars from a route that terminated about 5 miles from where I grew up.
PCC cars:

streetcars026.jpg

e0ea3c594d66568b194bfc90040a4c38.jpg


My grandmother was in charge of the hair salon at Kaufmann's Department store in downtown Pittsburgh.
She was often flown to different cities around the country to promote Clairol hair care products.
Above is a painting of the street corner with the famous Kaufmann's clock that was often used as a meeting landmark in the city.
"meet me under Kaufmann's clock" was fairly universal thing said in the 'burgh.
hippies002.jpg

Kaufmann's was known for their holiday window dressings intended to draw business towards them.
2.-Kaufmanns-B8-F-14-Toyland-1.jpg

3.-Kaufmanns-B8-F-14-Alice-in-Wonderland.jpg

tumblr_mwa23tdazp1rr5swxo3_1280.jpg

As children, it was awesome to see the windows, not just in Kaufmann's, but from the other department store as well.
Joseph J. Hornes at Christmas.
Horne’s Department Store decorated for Christmas, 1948.jpg


A part of those trips that added more enjoyment to them was a lunch date with Little Grandma at the Tick-Tock Shop inside of Kaufmann's.
Each trip was memorable, and even a little bit scary for us country bumpkins as we were more used to woods and farmlands than anything else.

The Kaufmann family was well to do, and commisioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a vacation home for them located in the upper highlands in Bear Run, Pennsylvania.
It is now a national landmark
https://fallingwater.org/
Because the Kaufmanns were so famous, they often entertained well known guests in their homes:

einstein.jpg

Some of you might recognize this one.
 
It's been such a winter wonderland around my place, that I haven't been able to buy wrapping paper.

I didn't finish my Christmas shopping either. So it'll be a year of simple gifts, and thankfulness.

I've been having fun recycling paper bags, and tying yarn ribbons.
 
WhitewaterWoman said:
Nice! Is that the same river as runs through Fallingwaters?

but to stay on topic, I think the nicest Christmases were when I had a young family, lots of blended children and we all made all of the Christmas ornaments and presents by hand.
Click to expand...
Technically no, Bear Run that Fallingwater was built over is a creek that flows roughly a mile before entering into the Youghogheny River, and just about 7 more miles from where my picture was taken.
 
Nitro said:
I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania in a fairly rural setting about 20 miles away from Pittsburgh.
We were taken there for Christmas shopping by streetcars from a route that terminated about 5 miles from where I grew up.
PCC cars:

View attachment 92298
View attachment 92297

My grandmother was in charge of the hair salon at Kaufmann's Department store in downtown Pittsburgh.
She was often flown to different cities around the country to promote Clairol hair care products.
Above is a painting of the street corner with the famous Kaufmann's clock that was often used as a meeting landmark in the city.
"meet me under Kaufmann's clock" was fairly universal thing said in the 'burgh.
View attachment 92302
Kaufmann's was known for their holiday window dressings intended to draw business towards them.
View attachment 92299
View attachment 92300
View attachment 92301
As children, it was awesome to see the windows, not just in Kaufmann's, but from the other department store as well.
Joseph J. Hornes at Christmas.
View attachment 92306

A part of those trips that added more enjoyment to them was a lunch date with Little Grandma at the Tick-Tock Shop inside of Kaufmann's.
Each trip was memorable, and even a little bit scary for us country bumpkins as we were more used to woods and farmlands than anything else.

The Kaufmann family was well to do, and commisioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a vacation home for them located in the upper highlands in Bear Run, Pennsylvania.
It is now a national landmark
https://fallingwater.org/
Because the Kaufmanns were so famous, they often entertained well known guests in their homes:

View attachment 92308
Some of you might recognize this one.
Click to expand...
Cool pictures. My family moved to Pittsburgh in 1978. I faintly remember walking through the Jenkins Arcade before it was torn down. I was fascinated by it. I would love to see some pictures of that. I also went downtown to the 3 department stores while they were open. Coming from a town of 20,000 it was hard to imagine a department store taking up over 8 floors.
 
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