It's the night before Christmas and my thoughts run back through the years to Christmas past, when I was small and Grandma was still around. It was always Christmas at her house, a ramshackle farmhouse with mice in the walls that she used to tell me were fairies working for Santa. I would nip into Grandma's big feather bed to get warm against her and the luxury that was the smallest coal fire in the bedroom fireplace on Christmas Eve.
Christmas wasn't the same once she had passed. My mother, raised during the War, seemed to spend all her time ironing wrapping paper, at least it seemed that way to me as a small child.
I asked my kids what they remembered best. It was the year their crazy Dad decided to drive up to Scotland to make snowballs, the only place in the country with snow, 10 hours driving each way!
Now I look at my 3 year old grandson. The hard times are here again and I wonder which of his memories will stay with him through life. I've already got him convinced that a dragon lives in the boiler room and it runs the heating. So always remember it's not the biggest present, or the grandest tree or even how good a cook you are that matters, it's the silly things that stick forever in a child's mind.
By kayerunrig from Lincoln, Lincolnshire
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That is so darling! I love the memories you shared!
My aunt used to tell us kids that there was a "Boar Hog" back in the garage so we would never putter and mess around in that part of the garage. It was all dark and it was boarded up and there were dangerous things that could fall on a child.
One night, in the quiet living room of the house her husband had built by hand, we were all sitting down and there was the biggest commotion, her husband, my uncle, (RIP) ran through the house with huge steps and hollering and screaming to get back in the garage.
We all came out to see what it was. He had gone out into the dark and disappeared into the still open garage (he had left open for this purpose I suppose). He came back in, out of breath, his clothes all ragged and his hat all askew.
He had chased that big, mean boar hog back out to the garage. Every child in the room had big eyes and their mouths fell open. Then he smiled and said "goodnight, sleep tight..."
I believed in that boar hog for a long time.
:)
I love the dragon in the basement. God bless the parents that make memories for children. I remember going "up the river" where we could cut our own tree, then decorating the tree with each of our favorite ornaments. Mine were mirrored star collars for the lights that hung low over the nativity set that was under the tree.
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