Advent Calendar - December 3 - Christmas Ornaments

I talked a little about our special ornaments on my December 1st post, but the most cherished ones I have are the 2 glass ornaments that my parents got their first Christmas in 1948, and of course, the First Christmas Together ornament my husband and I got in 1995.

As a child, I remember stringing popcorn and cranberries with my Girl Scout troop, but I'm not really sure they ever actually made it onto our tree! One special time I can recall, Mom and I used cookie cutters to trace on Christmas sheet music, laminated the cut outs and put ribbon through a hole punched at the top. I still have 2 of those, as well.

Another very special ornament I have is a toy soldier bread dough ornament handpainted by my sister, Melba. The first in my special collection of soldiers (mostly nutcrackers) that have a place of honor on our mantle every year.

Through the years, my sisters and I have collected many many Hallmark ornaments to commemorate Family events. Some of my favorites are: Our First Home, Baby's first Christmas (yes, both of them), and Disney vacation.
We also collect special interest ornaments for different family members, like
Dad: Mickey Mouse, Denver Broncos, Boston Red Sox and Starbucks.
Mom: Unicorns, Star Trek, Precious Moments, Coca Cola and nativity scenes
Son: Sesame Street, Legos, Scooby Doo, Star Wars, Guitar Hero
Daughter: Princesses, Fairies, Wizard of Oz and many crystals

A very fun annual event used to be the 50% ornament sale the day after Christmas.
My sisters and I would get up really really early to be at the Hallmark store before they opened to rush through the door, sometimes even driving as much as an hour to get to the best places, or staking out different stores and calling each other to see what we still needed. It was a sweet time and great fun, usually ending up at Olive Garden for lunch afterwards. Its something I miss now that we live so far away from each other.

This year, we plan to make some ornaments and memories of our own. Taking clear ornament balls, we're going to drip and drizzle paint inside and swirl it to make patterns. I have a very artistic young lady in the house to help me with this!!

What a great "Advent"ure of celebrating Christ's birth this season is!

Advent Calendar - December 2 - Christmas Food

Did your family or ancestors serve traditional dishes for the holidays? Was there one dish that was unusual?

I know, I missed this prompt yesterday, but I'm doing it today anyway, because its fun!

My family always had these as our "traditional" foods for Christmas: turkey, cornbread dressing, gibblet gravy, devilled eggs, cranberry sauce, carrot raisin salad, a celery, pickle and olive tray and lots of pies. Sweet potato, buttermilk, cherry, apple, pecan and mincemeat, all with handmade crusts. Yum! Something unusual in a way, was that we always had some sort of fruit jello item, many times being green jello with whipped cream and nuts in it.

And what would the Christmas season be without all the candy and goodies? My mother would make tons of things: popcorn balls, fudge, divinity, rum balls, coconut macaroons, peanut butter candy, peanut brittle, peanut patties and cookies of every known shape and flavor!

Advent Calendar - December 1 - The Christmas Tree

This post is number 1 in a series of 24 for the 2010 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. On the 24th Day of Christmas, I'm supposed to talk about the Christmas Tree. Did you have a real tree, or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree?

When I was growing up, we always had a real tree in the living room, decorated exactly like this photo. And every single year, there is a photo of me in front of it. We all decorated it together, and it had many ornaments on it that I made through the years, as well as our collectible Hallmark ornaments. It also had 2 special ornaments that my parents got their first Christmas together in 1948.

We always had a star, gold garland, silver icicles and multicolored blinking lights. On Christmas eve, we would leave the lights on all night long and many years I remember sneaking in in the middle of the night to check for Santa, and how the room seemed to be magically glowing.

Sometime in the mid-80s, my mom (like the rest of America, I think), got smitten with the silver aluminum Christmas tree, so from then on, we also had one of them setup in our dining room. One year, it would be decorated with all red and the next green. My dad still has that original tree. I hope to inherit it someday. A few years ago when my mom became homebound, my sister got her a new aluminum tree, this one with metallic green branches. She left it up year round in her bedroom.

Present day, our family has a tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm the Saturday after Thanksgiving, riding the hayride out in the fields, walking for miles to pick the right one and cut it down ourselves. Its usually about 8 feet tall and we spend about a week getting it decorated. Sounds cozy, right? We do live in Houston, though, so there are years when it could be 75 degrees picking out our tree! Its still jolly fun!

Love this picture !! Myrna Granath Stark, Juanda Kay Granath Edmondson, Ruth Granath Jahr, JoAnn Granath Heflin and Patrick Granath. The finest group of relatives you can imagine! God bless you and thank you all for the wonderful memories of family !! (Gene Granath, we missed you!) I can believe that the rest are smiling down this day from Heaven, especially my mom, Peggy. I'm sure she laughed right along with you all !

I am so blessed to be part of this family and proud to be a Granath !

Marriage certificate for my Granath grandparents

Thought that some of you Granaths might like to see these. This is the marriage certificate for my Great-grandparents, Alfred Granath and Martha Covington. Enjoy!

GRANATH FAMILY MINI-REUNION

This past weekend, 35+ Granath descendants and their spouses met in Hobbs, New Mexico for a mini-family reunion. I'm a little sad because I didn't get to go, but Debbie provided photographs and updates on the good time had by all. :) I'll try to get some of her photos uploaded alittle later today, as well as sharing some older photographs that I know she promised I would add to the blog. I'm hoping some of the cousins from the reunion will check in here to see what its about! If you do, make a comment!!

Sentimental Sunday - My mom and Hymns.

My sentimental Sunday story this week revolves around my mom, Dolores Peggy Jane Granath Ogle. Whenever I hear the classic old hymn, "Amazing Grace", I almost always start crying, because I can remember so vividly her singing that song as I was growing up and her saying that it was her favorite hymn. Anytime I hear it, if I close my eyes, I can hear her voice, clear as a bell, and I know she's probably singing it in Heaven to Jesus and smiling with her head tilted. And I bet that her voice catches at the end, just like it always did, because she couldn't get through it without crying either, just like me.

Another one, "The Old Rugged Cross" I find myself humming to myself without thinking about it, as I stand at the sink doing dishes sometimes, just exactly as I remember her doing many times in my growing up years.

We weren't really regulars at church, and I cant recall that we 'belonged' to any particular church growing up, but I knew our Lord and what He did for us through her, by the way she lived her life.

And she was a walking breathing songbook - any song from any musical, or pop, rock, jazz, swing, country western, folk songs, silly songs or anything in between, she could sing it, word for word and every verse ever written, too. It was nothing short of phenomenal. And it sure made life a lot of fun!!!