Papa and I are at the ranch preparing to fly to Austin on Tuesday, to celebrate Christmas with Whitney and her family. With Christmas only two days away, I've been thinking of Christmas traditions and memories through the years that always bring smiles to my face.
Christmas Eve Services... Claire and Whitney's second, when they crawled under the pews and got away from us... the first year we let Audrey carry a candle as we walked out of church singing Silent Night and she held the candle right at the tip of Dale's jacket... singing Oh Holy Night, my all time favorite carol
Christmas Eve Dinner... hors d'oeuvres that include Grammer's meatballs, smoked salmon, cheeses, veggies with dip
Christmas Eve Dessert... always chocolate fondue with fruits for dipping, YUM!
Christmas stockings... mostly homemade, it took me 8 years to finish the girls embroidered stockings, my stocking was a gift from Aunt Rhea and Uncle Wayne for my first Christmas and has my name "Lulu"
Christmas Mother-Daughter Tea... we hosted a tea for several years, always with a live pianist, and always with honey baked ham on hot rolls, lots of cookies, and cranberry punch
Gifts in our Christmas stockings... often our favorite with one of the most memorable being Claire's gift to Dan with directions to the gift written on a tiny scrap of torn wrapping paper
Gift wrapping... after learning about the amount of money wasted on wrapping paper back in 1985, I've tried to be creative with wrapping paper using brown or white craft paper (sometimes painted), newspaper or magazine pages... all have made for colorful and unusually wrapped gifts
Decorating our tree with ornaments gathered through the years
Watching Ralphie in A Christmas Story
Christmas 1987... Great Papa, Joan, and Mary joined us for Christmas in Dallas. We hosted a Christmas Party for friends and neighbors and Great Papa transformed into Santa. So much fun!
Mary's gift of a Big Bird puppet to the girls and she got a sore throat from being Big Bird for hours and days on end.
Christmas lights in Highland Park... always the most beautiful imaginable and completely over the top! Gathering with the whole community for the tree lighting on Armstrong Parkway and singing carols together.
Starting a new tradition in Cherokee Park, Sarasota... luminarias in the medians and singing carols in the neighborhood
Christmastime in Paris and driving south to Monaco...1992
Christmas in Spain and New Year's in Portugal... 1993
Christmas week at our Patagonia house... 1995
Selby by Candlelight... luminarias and music in the Gardens, first was in 1997
Trip to NYC to see Christmas lights and window displays... 1998
Christmas Eve service in the Vatican... 2005, with Pope Benedict officiating and Papa snoozing
Christmas in Morocco... 2007, with a memorable week following
Christmas in Tucson with little ones... 2009-2011, lots more stockings, meals together, making and lighting luminarias the first time with Toby, making a gingerbread house
Christmas Eve Services... Claire and Whitney's second, when they crawled under the pews and got away from us... the first year we let Audrey carry a candle as we walked out of church singing Silent Night and she held the candle right at the tip of Dale's jacket... singing Oh Holy Night, my all time favorite carol
Christmas Eve Dinner... hors d'oeuvres that include Grammer's meatballs, smoked salmon, cheeses, veggies with dip
Christmas Eve Dessert... always chocolate fondue with fruits for dipping, YUM!
Christmas stockings... mostly homemade, it took me 8 years to finish the girls embroidered stockings, my stocking was a gift from Aunt Rhea and Uncle Wayne for my first Christmas and has my name "Lulu"
Christmas Mother-Daughter Tea... we hosted a tea for several years, always with a live pianist, and always with honey baked ham on hot rolls, lots of cookies, and cranberry punch
Gifts in our Christmas stockings... often our favorite with one of the most memorable being Claire's gift to Dan with directions to the gift written on a tiny scrap of torn wrapping paper
Gift wrapping... after learning about the amount of money wasted on wrapping paper back in 1985, I've tried to be creative with wrapping paper using brown or white craft paper (sometimes painted), newspaper or magazine pages... all have made for colorful and unusually wrapped gifts
Decorating our tree with ornaments gathered through the years
Watching Ralphie in A Christmas Story
Christmas 1987... Great Papa, Joan, and Mary joined us for Christmas in Dallas. We hosted a Christmas Party for friends and neighbors and Great Papa transformed into Santa. So much fun!
Mary's gift of a Big Bird puppet to the girls and she got a sore throat from being Big Bird for hours and days on end.
Christmas lights in Highland Park... always the most beautiful imaginable and completely over the top! Gathering with the whole community for the tree lighting on Armstrong Parkway and singing carols together.
Starting a new tradition in Cherokee Park, Sarasota... luminarias in the medians and singing carols in the neighborhood
Christmastime in Paris and driving south to Monaco...1992
Christmas in Spain and New Year's in Portugal... 1993
Christmas week at our Patagonia house... 1995
Selby by Candlelight... luminarias and music in the Gardens, first was in 1997
Trip to NYC to see Christmas lights and window displays... 1998
Christmas Eve service in the Vatican... 2005, with Pope Benedict officiating and Papa snoozing
Christmas in Morocco... 2007, with a memorable week following
Christmas in Tucson with little ones... 2009-2011, lots more stockings, meals together, making and lighting luminarias the first time with Toby, making a gingerbread house
We are so blessed! Merry Christmas!
