Losing A Piece of My Childhood...

  Now that the Little Bayou House is devoid of all house guests, I decided it was as good of a time as any to sort through all of the Christmas decorations.  Although the things have all been down since two days after the holiday, they still were piled in huge mounds in the kiddos' play room.  With no grandlittles running about the place, it seemed to be an out of the way place to stash the junk...err...decorations until I had time to sort through them.  The packing and storing would be delayed a bit longer as I needed that sorting to be done.  While I am discarding a good many things, the sorting is more of a search for things.  On Christmas Eve, all of the antique stockings were hung on the mantel with care but, when time came to replace the vintage socks back in their nice box, care was thrown out the window.  Or perhaps a few of the stockings were tossed out that proverbial window.  When I finally gathered the stockings, three were missing.  THREE!  Three of the stockings had somehow become misplaced.  I searched the house to no avail and finally resorted to going through the bags of wrapping paper and boxes that were designated as trash. These had been stowed in the shed until we could haul them to the roadside. Thank goodness! Yay!  I found one wadded up with some old paper in a garbage bag.  Now, there were just two missing.  Thinking the trash was all sorted, I returned to the house only to hear Son tell me that he had already taken six bags of the trash to the road....the day after Christmas! Oh, no.  I had a sinking feeling that my stockings had already made their way to the dump.

  Today's search was no help.  Nary an antique stocking was to be found packed in with the decorations.  I know most folks will shrug their shoulders and say that the things were old anyway but that is not how I feel.  These were part of my childhood.  Of the two that are still missing, one was an extra one and the other just happened to be my very own stocking as a child.  It is gone and another piece...another memory cannot be replaced.  I was so happy to have the stockings as most everything from my childhood had burned in the fire that ravaged our first home here on the Bayou.  When Mom handed me the stocking, it was not merely a piece of cloth, it was a tie to my memories of long ago.  At least, I still have my brothers' stockings as they asked if I would keep them all together.  "It is like it used to be." they both said. "It is like when we were all together as a family. Hang the stockings for us."  Now...little sister has no stocking.  It makes me sad.  It also makes me sad that no one really cares.....                

A good pair of gloves can warm the hands but a single one can sometimes warm the heart.

  I am beginning to think that my holidays have not started yet. Early this morning, I dragged box after box of Christmas decorations downstairs and into the living room.  I figured that if I get the tree up at least it might FEEL a bit more cheery around here.  It is no easy task getting the thirty or so large boxes down the stairs.  Whew! Now I just had to unpack everything and get the house decorated.  Even with all that work, I was cold..really cold,  Perhaps that is the problem.  The Little Bayou House is cold and dreary for nigh on Christmas.  It is supposed to be happy and cheery not moody and dreary.  I pondered that fact as I built a fire in the old woodstove.  Sitting on the floor in front of the hearth, I stared at the fire.  The flames started with a flicker and soon were shooting to the top of the stove.  Ahhh, warmth. It seems that there is nothing better than an open flame to warm the body.  The electric heaters just cannot give what an old-fashioned woodstove can provide.  

  Later, my sweet sister-in-law came to visit and between the two of us, we managed to get the Christmas Tree up and partially decorated.  We ooohed and ahhhed over each ornament as we unpacked them and dangled them from the branches. Since I do not have "normal" ornaments, each item we unwrapped had a story behind it.  There was the little plastic blackbird from my grandmother's Christmas Tree. There were the wooden rocking horses and jumping jacks from my mom's place.  There were the folded paper angels from one year that this very same sister-in-law helped me make.  There were ornaments that the kids made in school and then there was the glove.  Yep, I have a Christmas Glove on my tree.  That glove was my youngest son's when he was a wee chap.  He loved his little gloves and would wear them year round.  Come Christmastime one year when he was about five years old, he carefully hung one glove on the tree as an ornament. When I asked why he put the glove on the tree, he informed me that it was so "Santa would know to bring him a new pair." Yep, Santa did bring him a new pair of gloves and, yep, the glove still finds its way onto the tree even twenty-five years later.  The Christmas Glove is going to stay.  It brings back memories.  It brings smiles.  And I need all the smiles I can get....don't we all?  A good pair of gloves can warm the hands but a single one can sometimes warm the heart.  My sister-in-law smiled after I told her the story.  "Yes!  The Christmas Glove needs to be on the tree!  I love your ornaments and the stories!"   

Christmas Bears

I decorated a lot with antique toys this year for Christmas.  It is understandable that toys bring up visions of happy children on Christmas morn and, well, I suppose the antique part is my way of keeping memories.  At the moment there are no little ones in the house.   All of my children have grown up and have lives of their own but that does not keep me from pulling all sorts of fanciful things out at this time of year.  It is all about the memories.  Memories from my childhood and memories made with my children.  Christmastime is also about making new memories with new little ones.  I received a box in the mail today that will be come a favorite memory of Christmases to come.  In this box was a small pail.  Inside the pail..bears!  A sweet, little lad handmade the bears under the supervision of his talented mommy!  I have never met this little boy and have only met his mommy one time years ago but that does not stop us from making memories for the future.  He and I have exchanged gifts each year since he was born.  Lately these gifts have become handmade ornaments.  Each year, I pull out the ornaments that he sends and hang them on the tree.  I smile with each one simply because of the fact that a bond can be made between two people that have never seen each other.  Memories..those held by an old lady on a bayou of a sweet lad and those of a small boy being taught to give by his mother.  I pulled the bears from the pail and hung them on the Christmas Tree.  Yep, these will become favorite ornaments for years to come..Colton and Mommy Toni have brought smiles of Christmastime to the Bayou!

The time has come for Old Santa to make his rounds and leave goodies for children everywhere.  The time has also come for all smart folks to be in bed and sound asleep and yet, here I sit!  "Merry Christmas to all and to all, a goodnight!"

Through the eyes of a child.....

I started wondering if I should even decorate the Little Bayou House for Christmas this year. I usually sort of "overdo" and wind up with decorations literally spilling from the house! But this year is going to be a bit different. I am not sure if anyone is going to be making the long trips home to the Bayou thus making me wonder if I should even go through all of the effort of hauling decorations down the stairs, unpacking them and going through the motions of putting them all in place. I had just started pondering this fact when I came across something that made all the difference in the world. I am one of these moms that seem to have a hard time letting go of things that my children made in the years past.

Back when Son, my youngest, was in third grade of Elementary School, he was given an assignment to create a "Christmas Book". This booklet was to contain all sorts of Christmas things such as poems, pictures, songs and such. Most were to be things that he found in magazines as this was pre-internet saavy days! Other things were to be his own creations. I sat down and reread this booklet and my attitude changed. I want to decorate even if no one else would be here to see these festive additions to the Little Bayou House. I want to wrap gifts in pretty paper and tie them up with ribbons! I want to bake until the house looks like a gingerbread house and smells like a bakery! I want to string lights all over the house, the yard and even down on the pier! I want Christmas to come to the Little Bayou House!

As I read through the pages of the booklet, I came across the page entitled "Christmas Memory". In Michael's handwriting the words of his story touched my heart. I had read it before but for some reason this time I could see what he felt that day. His memory involved a trip to the airport to pick up his dad. Hubby had been away working and was heading home for the holidays. In his story he related how the folks at the airport were getting annoyed because of flight delays. He told how babies were crying and adults were fussing but that I told him and his brother and sister to sing. I remember this..I remember (like he told in his story) how everyone got real quiet and then started to sing along with these three little tykes. Soon all of the people were happy..they were singing Christmas carols and shaking hands or giving hugs. Even the babies stopped crying. I guess music actually is calming..at least the singing of three small children seemed to be.

The memory of this incident brought back a ton of other memories. It also made me realize that memories are made simply by doing something from the heart. So....put on the Christmas music...pull out those boxes of decorations...hand me my mixing bowl and rolling pin...Mrs. Claus...errr..I have work to do and time's a'wasting!