Okay, we didn’t have a chimney, but we did have stockings! My Mom went to the mall where a vendor would be putting names in glitter on red and white stockings. I can’t find a picture of them, but I remember they had a Santa on the front that was fashioned after the Hallmark Santa…
Advent Calendar: Holiday Travel
(Day 13 of the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories: Holiday Travel) We never traveled anywhere during the holiday season. My Dad worked graveyard for bread company and he never had Christmas Eve off. Besides my folks couldn’t afford to travel more than once a year, so all our festivities were in town. But several relatives…
Advent Calendar: A Blending of Portuguese Hawaiian Traditions
My Portuguese family was originally from Sao Miguel Island, Azores. They brought with them many Portuguese traditions including setting up a creche (nativity scene). I am told that my Great Great Aunt had the original from the Azores and brought it from Hawaii to California. They arrived on Hawaiian shores in 1882. There they spent…
Dear Santa
(Day 6 of the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories: Santa Claus) Each year around the end of October I began bugging my Mom about writing Santa. She would relent just before Thanksgiving. Usually around that time, the Sears toy catalog would arrive. The five of us would salivate over the pages, dreaming for things like…
My Christmas Tree Ornament Collection
(Day 3 of the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories: Christmas Ornaments) When we were growing up, we had 4 or 5 boxes of those very generic looking ornaments. You know the type. Shiney balls and bells in blue, red, and green with glitter on them. Most of them broke by the time I was a…