New Years Eve

Growing up New Years Eve was boring but after I met Ray it was fun. However our children thought it was still boring so we changed it and made 12 noon New Year. Just at 12 we shot poppers into the air and yelled Happy New Year. Now we found our grandchildren liked it so we continued it and then we wold go in and have a ham for lunch. Now I think they prefer pizza.I like them both. We had a neighbor that shot off a gun and I thought was dangerous and still do. After lunch we took down our snowmen in the front yard and the lights off the house and undecorated the tree. That night we drove through Shawnee Mission Park and they must have burned the trees we brought with us but I may have that wrong as my memory has too many things in it these days. I have an artificial tree now and it is three parts and goes into a plastic bag for another Christmas. We start our New Years resolutions that we keep about 24 hours and look toward the next holiday Valentines Day.

Merry Christmas

It s a lovely sunshiny day. I know snow is pretty but it is kind of a bother on Christmas Day. I can remember a few snowy Christmases and I prefer sunshine. I hope you all made it to church and missed the many Christmas stories on TV. I hope your Christmas is Merry and I will let you relax while I think of another blog to enlighten you on my feelings of the world around me. Merry Christmas.

Snowmen

One August in 1951 I was reading a magazine and it told me how to design and cut snowmen out of wood for Christmas. My brother in law Roy helped me. We We added Cindy and Scott, a cat and a dog. When we had a daughter in law we added her but that did not last and her snowman is lying on the floor of the attic. Cindy's snowman was taken once and we found it in the ditch a block away. As the years past we added lights on the eaves of the house but it has pretty well stayed the same. Our granddaughter Hayden has repainted them once and they could use another coat now.

Christmas gifts

One Christmas our local grocery store offered some large toys for Christmas. Our youngest soon, Scott, fell in love with a toy cannon. He would go along to the store just so he could see that wonderful toy which was over the cashier. Our two oldest daughters liked the large dolls and we bought the toys. When we moved to Kansas City our dining room and living room were one large room and our table was on the north end of the room. We all sat at the table eating our breakfast. Scott just could not wait and with his older brother, Steve's help he loaded his plastic cannon ball. It shot across the room in a lovely arc and landed in his grandfather's cereal.

Decorating the tree

We have always had fun decorating the tree and then a glass of egg nog. Now I have an artificial tree but we use to have live ones. One year when all five children were helping and Sally was on the kitchen ladder she decided to step back and admire the tree and fell. She was not hurt but it cured her of doing it again, The tinsel was in little masses as no one singled it out and threw one at a time. The tree was in the middle of the living room at first and then we got grandchildren and put it in the middle of the front window. We had a Golden Retriever and he knocked it down so we put wires and wired it to the two small front windows. It was a fun time. Now my granddaughters and their mothers decorate it for me. I use to put stuffed animals under the tree but that is a lost cause with Buster liking to taste everything. I have my lights on the house and hedge. No snowmen anymore as they have retireed to sleep in the attic.

Another Christmas Eve

When our oldest son went to Sunday School in Topeka one Christmas Eve they gave him something to read on Christmas Eve. In Kansas City we would gather all the candles in the house and light them on the card table. When Ray worked at the Kansas City Times they got four holidays a year and Ray always took Christmas Eve as one, We did this every year as we added a few children and some grandchildren. The church has some kind of a musical put on by adults and one year they decided to use a real baby as Jesus and Hayden who had been born in September was chosen. Our minister commented he never knew Jesus was a girl. After that year we always went to church on Christmas ve. The program was turned over to the Youth director and we had many Marys, Josephs, wisemen, shepherds but I think Hayden was the only baby. Isn't is nice for the church to know that their children choir director was one Jesus. When Morgan was Mary the angel standing beside her fainted. One year they tried a lie Christmas scene with real sheep and I was in it along with all my female descendants. I like the one in the church better. Sometimes Prairie Village is very cold in December and being inside is nicer.

The Fairy Princess

Yesterday I had a visit from the Fairy Princess. I bet you did not know they made house visit. This year I have a pretty granddaughter being the Fairy Princess at the Kansas City Muesum and she came by to bring me some milk and eggs. Back in the 1940s the Shawnee school board said Nieman Grade School could not have Santa Claus. I know Ray was not on the school Board at that time as he would never have voted against Santa. We had many pretty mothers and asked one to be the Fairy Princess. She was very pretty and had five children some of which were in Nieman and she went to all the rooms handing out candy even her own children as they liked thinking their Mother was a Fairy Princess, Santa never came back and I think the room mothers just did it from then on but it was nice one year.