It's a night to be thinking of our blog friends who've left us behind to carry the torch of memories. Fredo, Jeri, JonDude, Great Martin. And haven't heard from Teal in a long time. Jeri told me she chose 'Elderjane' for her blog name because she didn't want her husband to think she was flirting with strangers.

My mother's family lived in an adobe Indian trading post in the four corners area of Colorado. I have no idea what they did for Christmas, but I'm sure decorating a tree was not involved. Christmas cards were probably the only decoration. Now that they are all gone, I'm sorry I didn't make more of an effort to visit down there this time of year or maybe asked.

This is what it looks like, but someone enhanced the colors. My cousin Paul inherited it from my uncles who never got married, lived there with their parents until they inherited it.



We grew up in the same town as my grandmother on my father's side, so there were family get togethers for the holidays.

Christmas Eve was the big deal. The menu was oyster stew, celery sticks, tomato aspic (it's red with sliced green Spanish olives in it), and I have no idea what for dessert. I doubt it was assorted holiday cookies because my grandmother made only two kinds of cookies year-round. Aunt Lena sent a box of really hard homemade popcorn balls every year, but that wouldn't count as dessert.

The main event was Santa Claus. After supper, all the children and Aunt Eleanor were sequestered in the Den, peeking at the front door through the keyhole, cracking nuts, and being excited.



Meanwhile, the adults were arranging unwrapped Christmas gifts on side chairs in the living room, one chair per child, in theory brought by Santa Claus. We'd hear jingle bells, and Ho-Ho-Ho it was Santa Claus. I never recognized the voice, always thought they had someone from outside the family 'be Santa' just for the vocals. Maybe I'll ask my older cousins what they know about it.

Nearing time for the release to present-land, the cousins lined up youngest to oldest, and upon release we rushed into the living room. One of the uncles filmed it on one of those 1950s video cameras with the bright lights, so we were blinded. I've never seen the films, but imagine everyone was squinting as they headed for their chairs, maybe holding up a hand to shield the eyes.

The unwrapped gifts were from our parents. My cousins would find favorite foods on their chairs, like a pound of bacon or a can of ripe olives or some kumquats. I didn't understand it back then, because food was food at our house, not some kind of special gift-worthy.

My mother made doll quilts/beds in those wooden baskets fruit from the grocery store came in during the 1950s for us, maybe for the girl cousins, too, although that bunch was more tomboy/wild honyocks as my mother would refer to them. It was hard to picture them pausing from the incessant feuding and slapping each other to put a doll to bed in a cradle-thing.



After we got done appreciating the gifts on our assigned chair (maybe they put names on the chairs?), it was time to open the wrapped gifts. There was a veritable Great Wall of China array of them under the Christmas tree. Here is Aunt Betty handing them out. She liked to be in charge. In the background the blonde girl is my sister, and one of those doll beds my mother made is next to her on the floor (pink).



I really liked all my gifts. I can remember a pencil box from Aunt Betty.



She lived in the Washington DC area, so it was rare for them to be with us for Christmas, but sent gifts every year. Imagine all the trouble to do that for seven nieces and nephews.

This is the girl cousins. I'm in the back on the left.



When we woke up Christmas morning, we'd discover Santa had been there. One year it was new bicycles, another year they had made a dollhouse for our Madame Alexander dolls. It was a kitchen & living room, more of a room box. My sister's part was the kitchen, and I had the other part. We set it up in the basement fruitroom with boards across the top to support grocery boxes that we lined with wallpaper samples, so it was a 15 or 20 room house. No pictures - we didn't take enough pictures.

My Aunt Eleanor lived in that house after her mother died, and I think we had some Christmas things there. She bought one of those aluminum trees, put pink balls on it, and had the color wheel. It was probably the only one in town. She always had a doll party for the girl cousins, gave us Madame Alexander dolls. Several years she would be mad at one or another of my cousins and refused to invite them. She got away with this after my Grandma died.



After Aunt Eleanor died a few years after her mother, the family drifted apart. My dad and his brother had a falling out, and for 10 or 15 years we didn't even glimpse our cousins even though they had moved into Grandma's house a couple blocks away. My mother and their mother never got along. During those years my family sometimes drove down to Mazatlan Mexico for Christmas. I never gave them a thought.

Now, all the cousins but one live in other states and I see the one very infrequently. Not for any reason, just life in different spheres.