It is getting close. I remember when I was a little girl and the Myers family(Mothers sister and family) would come for Christmas at our house. Sometimes Gran was there and sometimes at one of the other cousins house. They had 3 boys and since I was the only girl and the youngest, I got spoiled rotten and tormented beyond belief. As Tom was 8 years my senior, I don't remember him being in on the meaness.
We always had a Christmas program, but I don't remember the boys doing anything. Tom may have been forced to play his clarinet sometimes, I am not sure. I know they had to suffer through my recitations. Either The Night Before Christmas, the Christmas Story from Luke, Little Orphan Annie (why that one you are asking? It was one of Grans favorites, so if she were there it had to be done) and another poem by the same poet. Uncle Harry told some of his tall tales that I believed. We all slept on the floor and in the morning we destroyed the Christmas Tree. I remember the first year I didn't get a doll. Wow, that was a hard Christmas. One year I received a white Bible and that was special. I always had a chenille robe to wear and slippers and I still have a picture of me when I was about 10 in the robe I remember most. I think that was also the year I didn't get a doll.
It was a sweet and special time. During and just after the war, we enjoyed candy and that was special. New shoes were a great item. So were new wool coats. Dad and Uncle Harry always played practical jokes on each other and I loved being in on them. One year during the war, Dad would buy a bag of Bull Duram anytime he could and save it. Uncle Harry rolled his own cigarettes and he used Bull Duram. It wasn't easy to obtain and he cherished his Bull. For Christmas one year, Dad took all those sacks of Bull and built a man out of them. It was quite a feat and must have taken him days to complete. Uncle Harry slapped his knee and laughed in his loud, booming Armenian voice and had tears in his eyes. He loved that man and it took him awhile to take it apart to smoke the Bull. Those were fun times. I believe we almost always had snow, but I am sure if you look at the weather history you will find that is not true.
When it snowed, we always took the sleds to the 'bluffs' or 'white hill'. I am not sure why none of us ever died during those outings. Cold!! My word...we came home with wet clothes and tried to dry them out and get back to the hill before the snow was all gone. I can still smell the wool drying by the fire and the open kitchen stove. Yuk..that is a nasty smell.
Rachel and Tim and Joey will enjoy the snow this year. Well, perhaps everyone will but me. It almost never snows in Duncan, just ice.
