Archives for category: Holidays

Making Memories – the Best Gift of All

December 31, 2013 //

A friend once commented that the only thing we can really give our children is memories. That’s a pretty important statement because it covers a lot of ground. Memories can be of lessons learned, like my mother teaching me manners or how to make a bed, or they can be painful, like hurt feelings or physical injuries or loss of loved ones. He was referring to the good ones, the fun ones, the special ones.

Watching my four year old granddaughter, who has already lost her Daddy and her other grandmother in her short life, I am amazed once again at how much little ones observe and remember. She’s at the age where she says “remember when…” a lot, already placing her memories in her ever so short past. But they are definitely stored there and who knows when she will bring them back into a conversation or how they will ultimately affect her life.

For Christmas, I gave my family a trip, a long weekend together, to Austin and San Antonio. The weekend after Christmas was the first time we could find that their schedules weren’t bogged down with sports or school or work, almost an impossibility to bring four families, 16 people together. But we did it. We spent four days traveling in four cars to two cities with eight adults and eight kids ranging from 12-16 with one four year old.

The gift for me was watching them all together, enjoying each other. We all live in the same city but it’s hard to find time to just relax and enjoy each other. The bigger kids go to school together and are close friends, so there was no teenage drama, no teen rolling his or her eyes at the parents. The little one was silly and the older ones were amused and helped with her antics. The parents all parented all the kids. I just got to sit and watch. And love them all.

Looking back at my own life, I have every kind of memory, good, bad, sad, funny. In all our lives, there are things that can’t be avoided, things that hurt, events and people we would like to forget. At best, we can learn and grow from them and put them in perspective. But, it’s important to have good memories, sweet memories, funny memories, to help balance it all out. My obsession with photos helps me with that. Not every memory has to be as elaborate as the trip we took, but it was great. We have many memories that cost us nothing and happened right at home. And, when we gather, whether it’s all of us or with some absent, all those memories are part of the conversation.

The gift for me is that my family has grown into a loud, laughing, loving bunch where there are no awkward silences, no sulking members, no hateful scenes and lots of the very best kind of memories. My resolution for 2014 is to make more of the good kind for everyone I know, family or friend. Happy New Year!

Tags Austin, Christmas, family, love, memories, photographs, resolution, San Antonio, travel

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Photography, Places, Reflections, Travel, Uncategorized

Holiday Shopping…Kid Style

December 16, 2013 //

In a conversation with some of my grandkids, I was surprised that they weren’t thinking about gifts for their parents or siblings. When I was little, I bought presents for my parents, brother and sister and my grandparents. I had a memory of going to the dime store with $5 to buy all the gifts and coming home with Evening in Paris perfume for my mother and I can remember buying a lot of handkerchiefs for everyone.

This past few days, I’ve taken a couple of the grandkids on shopping trips so they could buy gifts. My 12-year old granddaughter has been finished for weeks, everything perfectly selected and probably wrapped by now. She’s got the whole thing figured out. No need to help her.

I took my 4-year old granddaughter shopping for her mother the other day. Since it’s just the two of them, I thought she needed to have a surprise or two for her Momma. And she’s old enough to start learning the giving part. I asked her mother likes jewelry and she replied, “Yeah, she does.” I wish I could write the inflection she uses for that phrase, because it is way too cute. She had a bit of a time picking out things because a 4-year old doesn’t understand prices very well, but we found something appropriate and special. Then we went to Target for some fillers. That’s the true test, because it was hard to get her away from the toys and what SHE wanted. She picked out something, a little treat, and I asked her if her mother liked that. She said, “Well, I do.” I guess Mom will, too. That was harder than I thought it would be because I had to watch her all the time. They get away from you so fast at that age and we all know that panicky feeling of turning around and finding them gone. In a nanosecond. She’s pretty proud of herself and promised to keep it a secret. I think that will work since she’s already moved on to something else. The learning part will come when she presents her gifts to her Momma and sees the delight.

Today, I took my 12-year old grandson shopping. He had $20 to buy gifts for his parents, his brother, and three grandparents. I told him I could help out, but he quickly made it clear he wanted to stay in his budget. We started at the sporting goods store, which was having a store-wide sale. We circled the store as the reality of prices settled in. Up until now, he’d done his holiday shopping at the little store at his elementary school where kids could buy cheap gifts, really cheap gifts, things only a parent or grandparent could smile at. He had looked so stricken when his older cousin told him that they didn’t have those stores in the middle school that I offered to take him shopping.

I told him to watch for Clearance signs, which would have the best prices. We were about to give up when he found something on the sale table for his brother. He was trying to do the math and decided this was what he wanted. We walked around some more and he found something cheaper for his brother, so he chose that to have more money for his parents’ gifts. Smart thinking going on here. He found some things he knew his parents would use, one of his criteria, and handed over his $20 bill. With the discount, he had $3 and change left, so I suggested we go to the Dollar Store to buy presents for his grandparents, since he knew what he wanted for them.

The Dollar Store is a miracle of bargains for someone on a budget and he found what he wanted immediately. He also found something for me, but didn’t want me to see it, so I gave him some change to cover taxes and hid in the car. He was so proud of himself. He had done all his shopping in less than 45 minutes, even counting driving several miles in 5:00 traffic, and stayed basically within his budget.

His next concern was hiding the gift. . .like all of us would be tearing his room apart to see what we’re going to get. I was the same way because I was a gift snooper myself. Can’t wait to see what the perfect useful gift was for me!

There’s not much cuter than watching kids learning the joy of giving and giving from their heart. Whatever we end up with really doesn’t matter. I need to check the progress of a few more grandkids in their shopping, hoping a couple more need my help. It’s one of the sweetest things about the holidays.

Tags budget, gifts, grandchildren, grandparents, holidays, presents, sales, shopping

Categories Family, Holidays, Memories, Reflections

Holidays of the Heart

December 10, 2013 //

While being snowed in for a couple of days, I’ve been decorating the house. This is no small deal as I have a vast collection of Santas and other Christmas objects. It takes me about three days to get it all out and that’s if I don’t get distracted. Part of the time is spent cleaning and clearing away everyday items to make room. It takes three steps: get everything out, make a huge mess, bring it all together.

This year, the emotions of it struck me harder than usual. Each piece I bring out has a story or brings a memory with it. There are ornaments and Santas from vacations that bring a flash of fun. There are Santas given to me by dear friends, long gone. There are ornaments from projects I worked on through the years. There’s the Santa my son gave me when he was 13, a hand made one he bought from an artist. There’s the Waterford Santa my husband bought me the year our first three grandsons were born, a Santa with a child on his lap. Little did we know that would be our last Christmas together. There are Santas and reindeer and bells brought to me by my precious little daughters. There’s a lovely snowman snow globe my daughter-in-law to be brought me when she and my son first started dating. There are some from my childhood and Santas and trees from my mother, purchased at Neiman Marcus so very many years ago.

As each of my children moved out of the house into their own, I gave them their box of ornaments. That left me with fewer, so I started using a little half tree that goes on the wall. It’s kind of my Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but it works. I have the same Santa on top I’ve had since the first year we had a tree, back in 1967. We actually married on December 23, 1966, but were on our honeymoon that year. I’ve added ornaments I found a few years ago that are picture frames with images of my family and some dear friends, even my pets. I decided these are the treasures of my life.

It’s tempting not to decorate. I don’t have the big parties I used to and it’s mostly for me, but it’s still special and fun. I usually hum while I’m working, all the beautiful and fun holiday music of our lives.

The emotions run through every day during the holidays as we celebrate with friends and family. We’re hurried to get what we want for our gift list and we’re bombarded with requests for donations from so many deserving charities. The joy is tempered by the guilt as we see one more image of a family who will have nothing when we have so much. We give canned goods and adopt families and drop coins in the Salvation Army buckets, knowing we can never do enough because the needs are so great. Some of us have someone close to us who is as needy as the people on the lists, but would never let us know. The joy of the season is tempered by the sorrow of those in pain and need.

The holidays are for sharing, sharing with all the joy in your heart. We pay it back and pay it forward and we reach out of ourselves. It’s a wonderful thing, this season of hope that brings out the best in all of us. A very wonderful time of year.

Tags Christmas, giving, memories, Santa, sharing

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Reflections, Seasons

Rural Roads…Southwest Oklahoma

December 3, 2013 //

When you live in a city, you need to leave every now and then, travel the quieter spaces of rural areas. Every state and country has them and you need to be there to get a true perspective on what a region is about. You need to put the crazy ways of the city up against the quiet ways of the country and understand the people who inhabit both.

I’d never really been in Southwest Oklahoma, so I went. Staying in Quartz Mountain Resort, in the middle of agricultural and cattle lands, traveling to Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, a national treasure, and driving through the small towns and rural roads was a trip that taught me much more about my state, adding to what I know and love about our country.

I love the county seats, like Cordell, with its beautiful county courthouse in the middle of the plaza. This one is on the national historic register, designed by the same architect who designed the state capitol.

I love the towns that still have their Carnegie libraries, like Lawton.

Lawton has destroyed their historic downtown, replacing it years ago with a mall, but they did keep the lovely home of Mattie Beal, a young telephone operator from Kansas whose name was drawn in the land lottery, giving her the means to become one of the city’s most beloved benefactors.

I love the little touches of the past preserved, like this Phillips station in Altus.

And this stop light in Hobart.

And the little towns that were built on hope and never really went anywhere. Who wouldn’t like to say they are from Indiahoma, Oklahoma? Say what?

Or Gotebo, pronounced Go’-Tee-Bow, where the most going business is dog grooming from the looks of things.

I love the little old movie theaters like the Redskin in Anadarko, a mostly Native American community, where they can get away with politically incorrect things like that,

and the Washita in Chickasha…a mouthful…

I love small town holiday decorations like these in Roosevelt

or these original street light decorations in Chickasha

And I love the rural roads

taking me through wide open spaces littered with the past

and the present

through areas of great agriculture. I had no idea how much cotton we grow in Oklahoma or that we harvest until December…

The rural areas bring you the peace of the end of the day. I love the sun going down in Hobart with its important grain elevators.

And you find humor in the most unexpected places…like this guy in Roosevelt…

I’m back in the city, but always thankful for those rural areas that provide the perspective I need…

Tags Altus, cotton, Gotebo, Indianola, Lawton, Oklahoma, Roosevelt, Rural, windmills

Categories History, Holidays, Places, Reflections, Seasons, Travel

The Mistletoe

November 30, 2013 //

This is the time of year when my husband would go quail hunting and come home with not only birds, but a special treat. He would shoot down a clump of mistletoe from high in a tree and bring it to me to hang in the house for the holidays. It was a treat to me because he was so proud of himself and would hold it over my head for a kiss before he hung it over a door. It wasn’t the mistletoe, it was the look on his face that I loved. Big ole guy with his clump of mistletoe, a romantic at heart.

There is a tree in my neighborhood with a lot of mistletoe this year. Mistletoe’s a parasite, a holiday tradition, the Oklahoma state flower, and that combination makes me smile. My morning walk takes me by that tree and I have sweet memories each time I pass it.

May someone hold mistletoe over your head this season!

Tags holidays, Mistletoe, Oklahoma

Categories Holidays, Memories, Nature, Reflections

Peek in the Pantry

November 27, 2013 //

Today, I’m remembering a song my grandmother used to sing to me and my mother and I sang it together forever…

I just took a peek in the pantry
And there on the row of shelves
sat a row of pies
that would be a surprise
to the Mince Pie King himself.

My grandma is here and my grandpa,
my cousins and Auntie May.
What is it about?
We’ll soon find out
for tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day.

Happy day before Thanksgiving to all!

Tags grandmother, Thanksgiving

Categories Family, Holidays, Memories, Reflections, Uncategorized

Holiday niceness

November 24, 2013 //

This weekend, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I did some shopping here and there, getting ready for the holidays. Everywhere I went I left with a smile on my face because of how friendly and nice everyone was. The clerks were friendly and smiling. In the grocery store, people laughed when we bumped carts and made light conversation with strangers as we picked out or favorites for the upcoming feast. One lady and I almost collided as I left an aisle and she joked that she shouldn’t be texting while driving.

At one store, some lovely people were handing out papers asking shoppers to purchase goods on the list to help with Thanksgiving dinner for men at a shelter in town. I gladly did so and was greeted with smiles and genuine gratitude from the volunteers. People were talking to strangers about the big game that night and laughing about the cold outside while they went about their shopping. The people handing out samples of food were laughing with the customers. It was the same everywhere I went. When I picked up a prescription, the lady commented that our birthdays are both coming up in a week or so. We talked about that.

It shouldn’t seem strange or unusual, but it really kind of was. Nobody seemed in a hurry or annoyed or frustrated. Everything was moving smoothly in all places. People pointed to their cars so I could follow them to get a place, people thanked clerks, clerks thanked customers. It was nice out there, running routine errands.

I hope everyone stays this sane, this relaxed during the coming weeks. I’m going to try and do my part and make sure I shop with a smile on my face. Aren’t we supposed to enjoy the holidays? Aren’t we supposed to be shopping for people we care about and doing extra things for people who need us? Isn’t this season supposed to be fun?

Remember during the coming weeks, when you feel rushed or pressured, to slow down, relax, hum a holiday song, smile, and do what you can to make this season, no matter what holidays you celebrate, what it’s supposed to be. . .the nicest time of the year!

Tags Christmas, Hanukkah, holidays, season, shopping, smile, Thanksgiving

Categories Family, Friends, Holidays, Reflections, Seasons

My Veterans

November 11, 2013 //

On Veterans Day, it’s appropriate to thank all of our veterans and their families. Thinking back on my own veterans, my thoughts go to all my family members who played a part in any war. Thanks to all of them…

My father, a Lt Colonel in the Air Force in World War II, who was a Squadron Commander flying bombers from Africa to Italy. His men never forgot him.

My grandparents who sent three sons and a son-in-law to war. Their youngest son, pictured with my grandfather, didn’t return…shot down over Germany.

My grandmother never got over that loss…

My other grandmother sent both her sons to war. She stayed home and packed parachutes at Ardmore Air Base.

My mother worked on the Air Base, where she met my father. They married at the end of the war.

My husband, who served in the Navy during the Viet Nam War. His post was state-side, but he served with pride.

I salute all the men and women who serve and those who wait for them. It’s about all of them giving for all of us. Thank you!

Tags Air Force, family, Navy, sailors, soldiers, Veterans Day, war

Categories Family, History, Holidays, Memories, Reflections

Trick or Treat, smell my feet…

October 28, 2013 //

Listening to my 4 year old granddaughter repeat the old Halloween taunt…Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat…in all its variations was a cute reminder of Halloweens past. I looked it up to see when we started celebrating this strange holiday and found it was brought to America by the Scots-Irish at the end of the 19th century. It’s been around a long time, being celebrated in ways that haven’t changed so much. I see vintage Halloween decorations at antique shops and flea markets, vintage surely meaning before my time…

When I was little, we dressed up, mostly in homemade costumes. I remember witches, cowboys, gypsies, devils, wolfmen and vampires,ghosts and being a hobo. Does anyone even know what a hobo is these days? We had store-bought costumes that were silly plastic masks and some kind of cheap material to wear and Superman and Batman were popular then as now…

And we had our paper dolls to play with…

When my baby sister was maybe six months old, my Daddy carried her around…she was dressed in a pink snowsuit with a rubber monkey mask…to show the neighbors. I still remember how adorable that was. That may be the only time I remember Daddy going with us although I’m sure there were a few other times. Mostly we grabbed pillow cases and ran house to house as fast as we could, filling the case and then unloading it at home and going for more. Those were pretty safe times in the 50s. We’d bring the candy home and lay it out on the floor or the bed, organizing it by treat to see how we did. Some of the neighbors made popcorn balls or caramel apples for us and we had banana bites, root beer barrels, candy bars (real size ones – none of those little bitty bite-sizes), tootsie rolls, tootsie pops. There was no Halloween packaging although sometimes people bought little Halloween sacks and filled them with unwrapped candies like candy corn. I heard rumors of people giving dimes although I don’t remember getting them. We snacked from the candy we kept under the bed for days, weeks.

There were Halloween parties decorated with black and orange crepe paper, cardboard decorations or maybe those kind of paper decorations that fanned out into 3-D pumpkins or black cats. And pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. We bobbed for apples and munched on Rice Krispies treats or cookies. Houses were decorated with pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns and those cardboard decorations taped in windows. In high school, there were a few costume parties. Hayrides were popular, real hayrides on big wagons loaded with piles of hay. These were popular because it was a great make-out date, even on church hayrides. Think of laying in the lay with your boyfriend, snuggled up against the cold, bouncing along under a starlit night…

Halloween has evolved during my lifetime, an understatement to say the least. When my four kids were little, we had more decorations, there were more pumpkin patches and we made an annual trip to find our best pumpkins. The carving took place close to the day, putting them out on Halloween night. If we put them out too early, they got stolen or withered. We didn’t care who took them after Halloween, just not before! There were no fancy cutting tools or designs, just pumpkin faces you made up. Pumpkin contests and Halloween parties were a big deal at elementary school.

My post-war generation threw Halloween parties for adults and kids alike. There weren’t too many, but, right after having our fourth child, we dressed as rabbits to laugh at ourselves in an age when birth control and zero population growth were the ideas of the moment. We didn’t plan to have four children, but there we were…my 6’4″ husband was a cute pink bunny and I was the prolific mommy bunny.

Sometime when my kids were little, the stories of razor blades in candy and drugs slipped into treats began and we had to take more cautions. The dads went with the kids, standing in the street talking while the kids ran to familiar houses for treats. The freedom of being on your own like in the days of my childhood was gone. Sure, there were scary houses in every neighborhood back then, enhanced by our imaginations, but we weren’t in real danger. It was a scarier world now. My son and his friends were allowed to travel in groups by the time they were 9 or ten, but they had to check in often and we inspected their candy.

In the early 90s, I opened a gift shop, about the time that Halloween was becoming a billion dollar industry. It became one of our biggest shopping seasons with decorations, specialty foods, and novelties exploding onto the market. The candy companies learned that packing items for the holiday made a big difference in sales and costumes became more sophisticated for all ages. Halloween was celebrated in bars, on airlines, in offices. Adults loved acting like kids, playing make-believe.

By the time I had grandchildren, Halloween was a big deal. In the age of political correctness, when people decided that this was a pagan holiday celebrating evil, Halloween parties changed to Fall Festivals in schools and churches. Only the name changed in the long run. We had our little goblins…

…the adults dressed up…

and the holiday continued to grow. And grow.

Yesterday, I was at a Halloween costume parade in the neighborhood, marveling at the costumes on all ages. There are a lot of super heroes and movie monsters and princesses and even the dogs have a costume contest. I had just looked through a brochure of different ways to make hot dogs look Halloweeny, food being one of the creative ways we celebrate these days. Television is full of Halloween movie festivals, Halloween episodes of your favorite show and scary movies are scarier than ever.

The holiday permeates our culture these days. It’s a celebration of harvest and fall colors and shorter days and cooler weather and imagination and creativity and acting like a kid and facing the scary things in life with a sense of humor.

Boo!

Tags 1950s, costumes, Halloween, Halloween treats, trick or treat

Categories Entertainment, Family, Holidays, Memories, Reflections

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

October 15, 2013 //

It Halloween time and all the scary movies are returning. One that frightened me and stuck in my head forever was “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” which came out in 1957 when I was in 6th or 7th grade. The images are so vivid to me of the man who kept getting smaller and smaller until he lived in a dollhouse, terrorized by the family cat and household spiders. The old black and white movie was well done, at least to this young mind. He got so small his wife couldn’t see him anymore and he was lost in the house.

Yesterday, I was measured at a doctor’s office and seemed to have shrunk. I still think she measured me wrong, but whatever. Good grief, I take enough calcium and eat enough dairy and exercise. Another strange thing about aging. Those movie images came back to me along with the fact that I would be getting smaller as my grandchildren get bigger and bigger – a couple are already around 6’4″ and still growing.

Scary movies have nothing on real life. The good news is that the movie ended on a positive note as the incredible shrinking man realized that he was going to shrink to atomic size but that there was no zero in the universe and he would always be a part of it. As the minister said at my son’s memorial service, “He is now all around us.”

In the meantime, look for the little woman in my family pictures. That will be me. Incredible.

Tags aging, Halloween, The Incredible Shrinking Man

Categories Entertainment, Family, Holidays, Reflections, Uncategorized

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