Do you ever wish you could recapture the magic that Christmas seemed to hold when you were a child? Sometimes I feel like I do all these "things" trying to make Christmas seem like Christmas did back then, but it's still not like I remember.
When I was little, we would get dressed up and go to the downtown Lazarus to have breakfast with Santa Claus. I don't know if we did it every year, but in my mind we did. I know that's why I try to make sure my kids have a breakfast with Santa experience every year. Of course, they are missing out on the amazing "Santa land" that Lazarus used to have where you had to make your way through displays of lights and movable creatures (almost animatronic) before getting to see Santa for yourself. I have a picture of me & my brother (or, as he got older) just me until I was in 5th grade. Oh! And after seeing Santa you
had to go see Mr. Tree in the children's department! I tried Google images to find some pictures of these things, but I couldn't and it darn near broke my heart.
Lazarus also had those great department store windows that you just don't see very often anymore. It was always so exciting to see how they were decorated each year! This year, the old Lazarus building is supposed to have it's windows decorated again and we are definitely going to check it out.
We always had advent calendars growing up too - although never the chocolate kind. My neighbor Kris, whose parents were from Europe, always seemed to have the chocolate ones and I was so jealous - which is totally why my kids get the chocolate ones now. I have to admit, I love watching Wesley and Ryan race downstairs in the morning to open their Advent calendars, pop the chocolate in their mouths and see how many more days there are until Christmas.
Duane and I have two different Nativity scenes in our house. One is a Fisher Price one for play and the other is a ceramic one for display. They are both nice, but when I was growing up, the one we had seemed so special. My parents always let me play with it and I think it was one of my favorite things about Christmas. Wesley and Ryan both play with it some at Grandma H.'s but I don't think they are nearly as obsessed with it as I was.
Speaking of obsessed...growing up we had a white ceramic Christmas tree with different colored lights on it sitting near our front door - very much like this one.
Ours didn't have a star on the top. I don't know if it never had one, or if Kirk and I managed to lose it, but he and I had an ongoing battle over which color light should be on the top of it. Every time one of us would walk by it, we'd change the color to the one we liked best, only to find the other person changed it back later!
The elementary school we attended did something kind of different the week before Christmas break too. Our school had this huge main staircase - it was actually two staircases that wrapped around and became one on the second floor. It was gorgeous. All the classes would file into the hallway and up the staircases in the mornings leading up to Christmas and sing Christmas carols to piano accompaniment. One of our teachers even wrote a song called "Candy Canes and Stockings" that was about the neighborhood our school was in. After singing, the classes would be dismissed and we would all hum "Silent Night" as we made our way back to our rooms. Wesley's school doesn't do anything like that, but it is awfully fun to hear Wesley and Ryan sing Christmas carols around the house.
Duane and I have an artificial, pre-lit tree that I love, but I do kind of miss the tradition of the family going out to breakfast and then to a Christmas tree farm to find the perfect tree. My dad would cut it down and then he would drag it back to the car with "help" from me and my brother. I have to admit though, while I miss the smell of a fresh tree, I do not miss the prickly needles!
My parents always put lights outside our house. I have memories of blue lights in our front bushes and even though white lights are my favorite now, I still have a warm and fuzzy place in my heart for blue lights. We don't decorate the outside of our house, although Wesley really wants us to. I usually pull into the back of the house, but tonight I had to park in front and I noticed that only two houses on our block were decorated with lights. It made me a little sad. Maybe we'll have to rethink decorating the front for next year.
I remember watching the sky so closely on Christmas Eve, that I would be able to see Rudolph's nose in the sky on the way home from church. The radio would broadcast "Santa Sightings." Do they still do that?
The house I grew up in had a basement family room. When Kirk and I were pretty little, our parents would use an old hook like latch on the door to keep us from going downstairs and getting into things too early in the morning. And the family rule was that you had to have something in your stomach before going downstairs - even if was just orange juice.
I think one of the hardest things about Christmas for me as a parent has been the fact that we aren't really home on Christmas day. We are so blessed to have all of our family nearby and to be on good terms with them, but can be hard (at least on me) to be running around on Christmas. When I was little my grandparents always came to our house on Christmas Day (Kirk and I were the youngest grandchildren on both sides and lived only about an hour away). I remember waiting anxiously for the to arrive so I could show them all the gifts Santa brought. Of course, now I realize that they probably knew the whole time what the jolly old elf would bring. Luckily, the boys don't seem to mind visiting everyone on Christmas day. They have never complained or asked to stay home, it's just that it's so different from what I grew up with.
And still, I see their eyes light up with anticipation for Christmas. Tonight Ryan was on the couch looking at the Christmas tree and told me he "Christmas is the best. Not Halloween. Christmas!" I guess that means we must be making sure they have their own magical memories of the holiday.
