Blogmas! (Day 8) What Christmas Means to Me

Christmas means a stocking with unwrapped candy thrown in it. Christmas stocking candy isn’t candy if it doesn’t have bits of red lint attached to it. And not just any candy.  It was this candy crap:

I don’t recall the significance behind these candies, but there has to be one because there are about 345 varieties in this one can and only 2 of them are worth eating. The rest are only good enough to throw at your siblings.

Besides the red lint horrible candies, my mom put an orange and a handful of nuts in our stockings. If memory serves, this tradition dates back to the Depression when times were tough and citrus was considered a luxury.  Even though I wasn’t born until 1972, and the Depression ended in 1939, five years prior to my mother’s birth, she felt it necessary to teach us this part of history with a visual rather than a chat at the dinner table. As an adult, I can appreciate the history lesson, and even as a teenager I can let it slide. As a six year old? I want candy canes, chocolate and a few of those Lifesaver books that all my friends used to get in their stockings. 

Raise your hand if you remember those.

Christmas means alternating turkey and ham. If we had ham at Thanksgiving, we were having turkey at Christmas. I didn’t like when my mom would make a ham because she’d stick cloves all over it, and I hate cloves. The meal was unpleasant every other Christmas.

Christmas means the greatest Christmas specials on t.v. :

• Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
• Frosty the Snowman
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Santa and the Three Bears

Santa and the Three Bears was my favorite when I was a little girl.

Christmas means twinkle lights, the smell of a Christmas tree, and making my annual horrible ornament at school. I was not a crafty child. My star usually just looked like a circle. My mom was kind though, and my ornaments always found their way to the back of the Christmas tree.

Christmas means mailing off the entire Sears catalog to Santa. Who needs to write a list when I want everything in the catalog?

Christmas means baking Santa’s cookies with my mom. We always made him peanut butter cookies.

Christmas means waking up at 4AM on Christmas morning and forcing my mom to wake up so we can open presents.

Christmas means dinner with my family. It was usually just the four of us (mom, sister, brother and me) because the rest of our family is in Canada. But to be honest, I liked it when it was just the four of us. It wasn’t chaotic and loud. My mom had on her country Christmas favorites playing, and we’d finally get along for a little bit. After dinner we were able to eat our pie in the living room while watching The Wizard of Oz. And we’d get along again for another hour.

Christmas means the world to me.

❤ Cherilyn 

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