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Christmas Glimpses

Posted on December 26, 2012 by susanrray

imagesAs I relax with cup of hot tea and homemade fudge, I’m relishing pictures of Christmas.  Husband and I celebrated Christmas with our Grands and their parents for two days.  Six adults and five children – age seven and under.  Lots of food and gifts and squeals and fun.

I’ll print and treasure many photos.  Our eighteen-month-old youngest Grand wore the red vest that I made for his daddy 35 years ago, and  he sat on the windowsill to test-taste a dill pickle.  Elaine, age 19 months, climbed to the top of the spinet piano and found the hidden out-of-reach candy.  Ruth, age 3, hugged her new doll and asked her uncle to help change the doll’s clothes.  Lou, age 5, knelt to the floor to kiss her little cousin good-bye.  Our oldest Grand, David leaped in surprise when he saw his gift – a remote control car.

Some Christmas images can’t be printed.  Some are happenings.  I saw the antlers, fuzzy and worn, stuck onto the roof of the brown compact car.  Who’d do that?  It seemed dorky.  “Look, Momma!  Rudolph!”  I heard a child’s voice.  A little girl tugged at her mother’s hand that held her tightly as they hurried across the shopping mall parking lot.  “Momma, look at his red nose!”  I looked and I chuckled.  A softball size red sponge ball was attached to the grill of the car.  I wish I knew who’d done that.  My hectic shopping day turned into a happier day.

One evening, Husband I stood outside the doors of Spring Street Market ringing a bell for Rescue Mission donations.  The smell of hot donuts floated our way from Ralph’s Donut Shop, just a block away.  As a customer carried her groceries out of the market, we were talking about the wonderful smell.  She agreed the aroma was enticing and waved to us as she drove out of the parking lot.  A few minutes later, her small green car swerved alarmingly close to us and then stopped.  This angel lady rolled down her car window and said, “Merry Christmas!”  She handed us a white bakery bag.  Two hot donut twists straight from Ralph’s.  We shouted, “Thank you!” as she drove away.

My college roommate, Jo Ann, visited me before Christmas for a day of candy making and my five-year-old Grand was also here.  “We need two cups of Chex cereal.  Lou, do you know how to measure?”  Jo Ann asked.  Lou, standing on a chair and on eye-level with Jo Ann answered, “Sure, I help Momma cook all the time.”  I stood aside.  For one thing, we were using Jo Ann’s White Trash candy recipe, but mostly I wanted to watch two people I love.  Jo Ann and Lou knew each other by name, but had never been together for more than a few minutes at a time.  Never stirred with the same spoon.  The next day Lou asked, “When’s Aunt Jo Ann coming back to make more candy?”

Glimpses of Christmas.  Some printed on paper.  Some printed in hearts.

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Under the Christmas Tree

Posted on December 20, 2012 by susanrray

images

Under the Christmas Tree

            There’s an electric train under our Christmas tree.  Nothing unusual for most people.  But we never even owned an electric train until December 20th last year when Husband came home with a big box.  “I got something for a little surprise.”  And then he set up the railroad tracks in the bedroom where the Grands sleep when they spend the night.  The train was a hit, but it rarely ran.  Out of sight and away from the action.

This year is different.  “David,” I said to our oldest Grand, “let’s set up Pop’s electric train under the Christmas tree.”  David, age 7, was slow to respond.  He eyed the space between the low tree branches and the floor.  “But then there won’t be room for all the presents,” he said.  His silence questioned if I was suggesting that the train would replace presents.  I assured him that gifts could be stacked near, not under, the tree.

David and I connected the train tracks and hooked the train cars together.  Black engine leading and red caboose at the end.  And the Grands loved it.  When they visited the next time, each took a turn at the controls.  The train zoomed, forward and backward.  And the horn blasted.  Ah, just as I’d envisioned.

And a few days later, Husband went shopping again.  For candy.  Now an open hopper car is full of chocolate candy kisses – wrapped in read and silver and green.  Another hopper hauls peppermint patties.  Chocolate Santas are stacked on the flatcar and held securely with red rubber bands.  And inside the boxcar?  It’s loaded with Pez.  Every flavor made.  “Look at all the special treats!”  said Lou, our five-year-old Grand.  And each Grand ate a special treat, chocolate Santas, after lunch.

“You know, this train is missing something,” David said.  Maybe another car loaded with candy?  “It needs a tunnel.”  Husband and David went on a hunt for a box.  None, in recycling or those saved for wrapping gifts, were the right size.  “I know.  I’ll be right back.”  He rolled our play grocery cart filled with large cardboard building blocks into the living room.  He and Lou built a tunnel that encloses one end of the tracks.  Lou took the controls and both agreed the train wouldn’t knock down the tunnel.  But they’d have to tell Elain, their baby sister, to not take the tunnel apart.

“Now,” said Lou, “where’s the engineer?”  Out came the Legos.  David constructed.  Lou advised.  The engineer sits atop a platform so he can see the train really well.  The platform is attached to an overhead water sprinkler – “just in case there’s a fire on the train,” David told me.  Lou built a small Lego house so the engineer will have a place to sleep when he isn’t working.

Now our electric train is complete, I think.  And I love it.  But there’s still time for Husband to go shopping and hide a little special surprise in the boxcar.

 

Filed under: Family, Gifts, Grandchildren, Holidays | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

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