2015 Day 14 - Places We Go

When thinking about where we would go during Christmas, my 1st thought was that we never went anywhere...maybe once to my grandparent's place in Saskatoon, but I would have been pretty young at the time and I can't really recall it...I should ask my mother so I can reclaim those memories. 

One year we were in Hawaii...I'll have to talk about that another time because what DID come to mind was that we went to my aunt's parent's place a couple of times.  Uncle Arthur (dad's brother) and Aunt Helen and kids (Dave and Rob) lived in Calgary...every other year my Granny would do Christmas down there and she'd be with use between Christmas and the New Year.  Often, in the years that she was at our place for Christmas, they would come up to Edmonton to visit with Aunt Helen's family (if it wasn't a year they were also in Calgary).  On these rare occasions when everyone was in Edmonton, Aunt Helen's parents would invite us to go over for Christmas dinner (because there were only 5 of us). 

My brother and I didn't like going because we were (are) shy and their house was SO full of people (Aunt Helen had 3...or is it 4...sisters...so there were husbands and lots of other kids).  Anyway, everyone would mainly be sitting in the basement  with TV trays and we'd all be eating.  Now that I think of it...was it for dinner or for nibbles/coffee...I really don't remember. 

The house was decorated in a typical 70's decor (as was our house) and I always enjoyed looking at other people's Christmas trees and decorations.  It always ended up being a fun time, even if we didn't really want to go.

It looked a lot like this...

2014 Day 14 - Places We Go

Today I was thinking about how Christmas looked at my parent's house around the time I took over the decorating.

The 1st step was to remove the chair that was in the corner of the living room - always a drama.  The other problem with that area was that they had a huge swag lamp that hung right where the tree was to go.  It always seemed annoying to have that there.....so glad its gone.  The tree from that era had individual holes to stick in each branch (similar/but different to what I have now)....it was a pain to assemble.

The other main thing I see is the overall decor of the house - the carpet was orange shag (I know...ick) and the furniture was big, bold flowers (brown, orange on a cream background) and there were 2 rocking chairs in green plaid!  O.M.G.  What were people thinking in the 70's?!?!

The tree had various glass ornaments all from the 60's...totally vintage.  You'd purchase a box of ornaments and they would be different colours...so it was very eclectic.  The lights on the tree were all the larger bulbs and were also multi-coloured.  The best bit was all the TINSEL!  No one has that any more...and it was a pain to put on and take off, but did look beautiful.  I remember Hobo's tail (our cat...see Hobo) would act like a magnet and he'd have tinsel following him around.

To add to the colour ciaos....we'd hang a plastic poinsettia off of each of the lamp shades. 

I pumped up the visual volume even more by putting stuff around the room doors (can't remember exactly, but there was something over every door down the hallway...and thankfully I only did it the one year).  Mom also made various table top decorations, which were all lovely, but I haven't been able to find a photo of them.  There was one with Santa in a sleigh and another pretty blue and silver one.  Once the family tree was 7 pieces...I took over the Christmas decoration because it was easy for 1 person to do.

A few years after I took over, I added mini clear lights and only put ornaments that matched each other (colour wise) on the tree (green and red and gold...left out the pink and teal).

Eventually I pulled out all the coloured lights and added more mini-clear ones.

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This year on Dec 14, we mailed Santa's letter.  It was also my BFF's 50th Birthday!

2013 Day 14 - Places We Go

Christmas always revolved around my father's family - his parents lived in Saskatoon and we always had Christmas (either a few days before and the day of OR a day or so afterwards) with my grandparents.  They would take turns being at our place, or down in Calgary with my Uncle's family - and they would leave wherever they were, to go to the other home around Dec 27....so that we'd all have some time with our grandparents during the Christmas break.

One thing that came back to mind (that I had totally forgotten) while thinking about this was mixed nuts!

One of the things that was brought to eat was bags of in-the-shell mixed nuts - lots and lots of nuts - at least a bag each of walnuts, almonds, filberts/hazelnuts, Brazil nuts.  All of the grocery stores had piles of nuts setup in the produce area and you scooped as many as you wanted in bags and paid for it by weight.  My parents had this big green bowl that they'd keep stocked with nuts and sitting out on the coffee table in the living room with nut openers sticking out of the nuts for anyone to use.

This is a tradition from my father's family because I remember that he and his parents would eat and eat nuts all day long - I can still hear the crack, crack, munch of them eating nuts.  I would have a few and it is totally addictive, but if I had a few in a row that were harder to open, I'd lose interest.  My mother also joined in with the nut eating, but it really was my father and his mother that were the BIG nut lovers.

NOW, there are still these kinds of nuts around to purchase, but not like the quantity there was before and often they are in a (small) bag where the types of nuts are already mixed.  I'm not sure my parents still purchase them, and if they do, they don't have them out on Christmas, that I can remember.

After my Granny stopped being able to come up for Christmas, the nut quantity at Christmas time dwindled.  One reason was that Mom thought it was too fattening to eat so many nuts (which is true...they ate a TON of nuts) and I think it was around that time it started to get harder to find the nuts still in the shell (which I presume is because it got more expensive).