Story #15

This is my last post of past Christmas memories.  This has been fun and I hope you have enjoyed my walk down memory lane. Tonight, takes us back to when I was 4.  Letitia,  you said 5 but I went back one more year. 
This is a picture of my dad and me when I was 4.  I was his little tomboy.  This particular Christmas I received sports equipment:  a bat/ ball/glove and a football with a tee.  I loved them.  It probably set the stage for my future as an athlete.  Hahaha 
I did grow up to play softball, volleyball, neighborhood basketball and now I compete in Sr. Olympics.....Guess I had a good start. 
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Story # 14

I always loved having my stocking filled with goodies.  I liked that as much as I did getting presents.  I wasn't always a big fan of the apple or orange that was inside but I loved getting sparklers and candy and trinkets.
My favorite stocking items were the personalized pens/pencils/notepads and address labels.  It was so much fun holding the new stuff with my name on it.  The notepads always said:  FROM THE DESK OF DEBBIE.  I would always display those pads on my desk.
My pens and pencils with my name on them were exciting to use at school.   No one could borrow them because they had my name on them.  Also...my family members sometimes borrowed things and forgot to return them.  These had my name on them so usually they would leave them alone.
My address labels were so cool.  They were usually in pastel colors and came with a cute little dispenser.  I was a letter writer so having personalized return labels made it more fun to write letters.
I continued doing that for my kids....but now....pens and pencils are not used very much anymore.  last year, I got my adult kids personalized jump drives.  I think they liked them.
Merry Christmas.

Story#13

Holidays crafts!   They sound so fun.  They are supposed to create memories and foster warm fuzzies while working together on a project.  Well, I always dreamed of doing fun holiday crafts with my kids and having them turn out just perfect.  I think we did create memories....not sure about the warm fuzzies. 

The first project we tried to make was the simple candy trees on Styrofoam cones.  Directions sounded pretty easy.  I bought the candy gumdrops and glue guns to hot glue the candy to the Styrofoam and it would turn out looking like a cute candy tree!  Easy right?  WEll...right off Erica burned herself with some melted glue that landed on her hand.  We had to stop and run cold water on it and apply an ice pack.  So...she decided to just watch.  Keith worked on his tree until it was about halfway thru and then he was finished.  I was forced to finish out the 3 cones.....I had one for Keith Erica and me.  As I was finishing this project, I was thinking about the next year's one and how no hot glue would be involved. 

The next project we tried was a Ginger bread house.  It was a kit and it said it had everything you needed to make this cute house.  We worked and worked on the house and I let each one of  them decorate one side of the house.  Looked like it was going pretty well.   We were having fun and feeling pretty good about it.  Our self esteem was definitely higher than last years flop.  WE finished....made pictures...and left it to dry overnight.

Next morning.....every bit of the roof icing that was supposed to be snow has drained off to create snow like icing mounds and a snow empty roof.  Oh well.....it was still standing and we just told people that the house experience a bad weather night.

The next year our project was baking and decorating cookies.   This was our thing!  It was the first project that we worked on and it really turned out good.  Plus....we ate samples along the way.  So....cookies looked like cookies and were beautiful masterpieces.  Finally, we found out "thing" that we could do together as a family.  But then....you have to figure out how to eat them or give them away. 

To this day, I try to do a cookie baking and decorating time with whoever will come.  Sometimes we have done a girls day with the girls.. One year we did it with everybody, men included.  This year, Sammy was our bonding victim.....

So kudos to all of you who can create crafts that look like Martha Stewart produced.....we will stick to our strengths:   baking/creating/decorating/ eating.

Story #12

This blog almost didn't make it.  I had a church rehearsal and didnt' get back home til 11:45pm.....very late for me.
So...when I was in college, one Christmas a restaurant named:  The Loft in the Mt Moriah area offered our church a donation if we supplied a quartet every Friday and Sat night in Dec to sing Christmas carols.  They would donate to our Music Ministry and the quartet would get a free meal each night.

So, me, Chuck, David, and Priscilla (Prissy to us) got together and worked up some music sets and I played the guitar.  I am only a marginal player but managed to pull it off.  We sang 3 different 30 min sets with breaks in between..  We also had to move to 3 locations.  We were like roving minstrels. 

It was fun....but by the 3rd weekend in December...we were all pretty tired of our weekends being tied up. Amazingly, we all got along well and the patrons seemed to enjoy being serenaded while they ate.  Even a few people asked what church we were from and said that they would visit us.

I really loved the free meals!  Since they were free I ordered steak and lobster tail every time.  It was my first time ever to eat Lobster and I fell for it. 

Not sure what the donation amount was, but I really enjoyed doing that gig and eating the free food.  I think I gained about 10 pounds that December.

Story #11

This is the story of Frosty the Snowman.   Well....it is our story of our Frosty.
We had an illuminated Frosty the Snowman that my parents put on our front porch as part of the decor. 
One night, we heard this commotion outside our house and, course, we all needed to check it out.

We found that our front door had been egged and that our Frosty was gone!  Someone stole Frosty! 

Never mess with a McMillan and their belongings.  Dad and I hopped in the car and drove up and down the streets all over the neighborhood looking for our missing Frosty. 

Nothing!  No sign of him.  My dad was furious.  So...we returned home and cleaned off the eggs on the door and went to bed.

The next morning....still no Frosty. 
But....later that day, the doorbell rang.  It was a boy on the porch!  He had Frosty!   He was made to apologize to Dad and returned Frosty.  He had seen it every night and decided that he wanted it for his house.  But....his parents knew they didn't buy it and made him confess and then return it with an apology.

We were so happy to have Frosty back home.  And....even now...thinking about it.....I am impressed that his parents made him do the right thing. 

Story #10

One of my best and most favorite memories is from my old Parkway Village Baptist Church days.  I loved the Christmas Eve service when Bro Mike was our pastor.  Our entire family would go together to the service and it would be full of other families.  It was done in low light so that made it special to me. And...we would sit as family units around tables for the entire service. 
We would sing carols and read scriptures and it all ended with taking communion together.  But....this communion was different than the ones on Sundays.  This was bread we tore from a loaf and a bigger cup of juice than that tiny little cup of juice we normally sipped. 
My dad was a deacon so he was in charge of passing out the elements around our table.  
I looked forward to this service every year.  I felt , even as a child, that I was really celebrating Christmas for the right reason:  Jesus' birth.  Then, I didn't feel so selfish afterwards when we went home to open our gifts. 
Those many Eve services hold a special place in my heart.  We carried that tradition into our own family.  It did change however when we started attending another church.   The new church had a Christmas Eve service....but it wasn't anything like the old PVBC once. 

Story #9

OK.....today my story is about something we found under our tree every year.  And....I was never sure why so I continued the trend in my own family.  Until I realized that I didn't have to have this under my tree just because it was a tradition.  I didn't understand the tradition and really never knew where it came from nor why.
It is:  nuts and fruit from Santa!!!!
What kid wants to wake up to sacks of mixed nuts

Fruits

and a coconut?

They were always presented in a green paper sack and the top was neatly folded down.  I never saw these sacks except at Christmas......so for sure it was from Santa.  The nuts were a mix of almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and pecans....all of which were in their shells.  The best part of these nuts was when we were cracking them open.   We never ate any but we loved the mess it made and "cracking" sound of their shells popping open.  Not sure whatever happened to them....but I know that my sisters and I never did eat them.

Then there was the fruit.  I always had fruit in my lunch so I wasn't too interested in that.  Except the pineapple.  That fresh pineapple was a once a year treat.  We did like that....but we fought over who got the first piece....like that made a difference or something!

And last but definitely not least was the coconut.   That hairy thing was intriguing.  One coconut was for all of us.  Now....who eats fresh coconut as a snack?   Certainly not a kid....but the cool thing was that I was able to poke the wholes in it to drain the 1 oz of milk that we would each get to sip.  I stuck the ice pick into the 3 little holes that always reminded me of a bowling ball....and then we drained the coconut.  Like I said...1 oz!   And every year, it was Yucky!!!  I guess I thought each year it might really taste good. 
Then, Dad would take a hammer and bust the thing wide open.   We each received a sample of the meat and it really wasn't very good either....but it was a novelty.  I found that I liked coconut on cakes and in candy bars better than fresh out of the shell.

So....that tradition stopped with me.  I did it once or twice and then realized that it was a waste and not really that important.  I switched to providing chocolate and high sugary stocking items.....much more appreciated and definitely eaten.