I asked my daughter to add little suggestions to the advent calendar she made for me last Christmas. This suggestion was in envelope number 1.1. Cleveland, Ohio. Halle's Seventh Floor Winter/Toy wonderland. Mr. Jingaling.
2. Christmas Eve with my Dad. My dad was a city policeman and worked as much overtime as he could during all holidays to save money to buy us a house. On Christmas Eve he would be home in the late afternoon (dark) and my brothers and I would walk through the neighborhood with him looking at the Christmas lights. My mom would join us along the route. When we got home we were encouraged (the first time) to go up on the porch and look in the windows to see if Santa had come. He HAD!
3. Advertising was so closely tied to Christmas when I was little. Santa and Coke. This was the ONLY time of year my parents purchased Coke. A six bottle carton of tiny green glass bottles. One for each of us (3 kids, mom and dad and Santa). We drank our little bottles on Christmas Eve. Ever so slowly. And placed the one for Santa next to the cookies we had made for him.
4. Christmas in Europe. When we lived there for 6 years I loved every Christmas moment. The advent wreaths and candles. The Christmas Markets after dark. The tiny trees with white lights only on roof tops and balconies; marking the way for the three wise men on their journey. Following a church group into the woods across from my German house and standing with them in a clearing in the woods, moon light, singing "Silent Night" in German.
5. The week after Christmas, 1979 or 80, I think. Bolingbrook, IL. Our family room. G was home for the week (he traveled 2 weeks each month to Europe) and he set up a card table in the family room and constructed my large saltbox doll house while the kids played with their Christmas toys and watched Christmas television. We may have gotten our first pet that year. Sam's kitten.
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