My Earliest Christmas Memory

Turns out I am not quite at the "post every day! Or every week!" place just yet *wink* But I already forgive myself so here's trying once again.

This past week has been crazy busy as I finished my Portraiture class I am taking, finished the (instruction for, but not assignments given in) Holiday in Hand class, created and sent to print an entire album from scratch (my first on PSE!) for a Christmas gift, dog-sat for our fabulous neighbors and then got the house ready for and hosted Thanksgiving dinner. Before you get too impressed, "hosting thanksgiving dinner" really only meant preparing a few dishes on my part. it is a potluck style meal in our family, and Mom really makes the most food. THANK YOU, MOM!

Part of the Holiday in Hand class at JessicaSprague.com includes fabulous prompts for each day of December, to help you in journaling and also in savings / preserving memories. I reckon it will take me a few years to actually "do" the whole class (let's be realistic - Know thyself!), but in the meantime i will try to use this space for a memory here and there.

Dec 1's "remember" prompt is:
"What is your earliest holiday memory?"

I am not sure what my earliest holiday memory is, exactly. I can remember opening up and receiving a child-sized (as in, 3 feet long) Raggedy Ann doll when I was still living with my parents in Grey Forest. That would be before I was 4. I can remember trying to drag it around everywhere and being very impressed at how large my doll was :) I enjoyed the raggedy Ann and Andy book/s when I was little and really treasured having a doll of my own. Out in the country I do not remember having any friends to play with (except for a girl I saw rarely, who lived or visited family along the very backside of our property, which was far in my mind) and did not have cousins or brother in my life just yet - I was the oldest grandchild on both sides by 3 and 4 years. So having that big doll was cool because she was *my* size and an actual friend. I could play with her like she was a child.

OK, In case my mom ever reads this: yes, I do remember going to daycare and being around kids there, and having my BFF Melanie in the class (Melanie, for those of you who don't know her, had cool gym or ballerina uniforms. I am not sure i even got to take a class. That's right - your preschoolers WILL remember things like this lol). So it is not like i was all alone, all the time. But there weren't kids in the house a lot. And I didn't know any better to miss them (or at least, I don't remember that I did). I do remember playing a lot with Spanish Moss and little baby Tree Frogs a lot when I was little. And coke bottles stored under the back stoop for recycling. There may have been a large dog, too, but I don't remember hanging out with the dog.

Anyway - holiday first would probably be that Raggedy Ann Christmas. Unless it was a birthday, in which case I also have strong memories of celebrating Christmas at Grandma V's house with extended family. Mom is grateful I remember getting the "Baby that-a-way" doll one Christmas. She crawled by herself and was a VERY hot item in the late 1970s and Mom couldn't find it anywhere in SA so she eventually got Aunt Blanche to get the doll in Houston and bring it down for Christmas. See, mom? I do remember and even appreciate some things. Sadly, my only other real memory of baby thataway is her sad demise, which included a corroded butt where the batteries resided. What happened, Baby?

We typically had Christmas celebrations with my mom's family and the, separately, with my dad's family while my grandparents were all alive. Later, mom's parents would sometimes go to Dad's parents for celebrations as well. My mom's mom always went crazy overboard with gifts, which I loved. As a child. As an adult I wish my children to have modest Christmas hauls because I now know the work involved in making that much new stuff fit into the house, and dealing with emotional issues involving "gimme gimme gimme" attitudes :) But I digress.

This Christmas we continue on visiting with Mom's family, then Dad's, before the holiday itself, then on the 24th my little family will celebrate at home, then 25th we will celebrate with my folks, my brother and his family, and my own peeps all together.