1. Caroling the lonely tolltaker on the drawbridge on the way to midnight service Christmas Eve.
2. The Lionel train set in a circle around the Christmas tree.
3. The first Christmas presents me and my sister ever made for our parents when we were about 5 and 3, long cardboard insert tubes hand-colored and decorated....we were so proud we made them!
4. Mom's famous Christmas Eve punch.
5. Going out into the woods to cut our own Christmas tree when we lived in the country.
6. New York City at Christmastime, I love New York City at Christmas...the store window displays, the Radio City Hall Christmas show, and, of course, the beautiful tree and ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza.
7.
Holiday Inn,
White Christmas, Alistair Sim's
A Christmas Carol, Edmund Gwen in
Miracle on 34th Street, Victor Herbert's
Babes in Toyland.
8. Santa Letters and Elf calls to my nieces.
9. The laughter of children's delight.
10. My Aunt's traditional "Russian Christmas" dinner on Jan. 7th, a feast with all the ethnic foods (stuffed cabbage, bobalky, mushroom soup, chren (grated beets and horseradish), roshky (sourdough rolled cookies with lekvar and apricot/walnut filling)...my mother making many of the same traditional dishes for our own Christmas.
11. And, of course, helping Mom make Christmas cookies with my sister, rolling the dough, using the cookie cutters of all shapes and sizes...and
always sneaking some cookies before we were allowed!
12. Snow...lots of it...back in the mountains in the early 60s.
13. Managing Christmas shop in a department store (Jamesway) for years (had Christmas from Sept. to Feb. -- yeech!). And the year I had to display this new chirping bird tree decoration on my endcap and listen to it for 8 hours or more a day, I'm visiting a friend on Christmas Eve and his Mom says, "Oh! I have a special surprise for you! You're gonna love this!" And then she goes to the tree and turns on this same damned chirping bird! I swallowed and hid my cringe for about two hours! "Oh...That's great!", I said. After all, it was Christmas!
14. The special hand-drawn picture-story my 9 year old niece, Megan, created for me, called "Uncle David's Magic Present", bound in a leather case.
's'nough...Merry Christmas!
(nice idea, WW...thanks!)
