Advent - day eight

On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love brought to, 8 elegant ornaments, 7 certain suitcases, 6 singing souls, 5 Yulenissers, 4 Christmas stockings, 3 special wishes, 2 roller skates, and one very large sea kelp.

This was probably taken on the day after Christmas, because that was when Grandpa Clayton usually came. He made his rounds to the other cousins who lived closer to him, and then he and Grandma Connie and Anne all trekked out the Valley for our big brood. It got to where I sometimes enjoyed the day after Christmas more than Christmas day itself! Two big meals in a row - it was like heaven!

Grandpa would haul in a big box of presents - and even though only one was for you, just the sight of a nice old man carrying in a big box of gifts was enough to make the holiday come alive once more!! As I got older, the gifts were often jewelry, because Grandpa was a jeweler. Sometimes they were rings, watches and necklaces that had been brought in for repair and never picked up - but they still looked like luxuries to me!

On a totally unrelated note, we had a pretty motley collection of ornaments on our tree but I remember loving all of them. Who remembers the glass grapes? (and I don't mean the resin kind - these were somewhat largish glass ornaments that looked like a bunch of grapes.)

One year, the man across the street, who was some kind of salesman, gave us his Christmas samples - ornaments that were attached to a cardboard display board. Well, when you took them off, the back side had no more paint or decoration on it. Sometimes the back was a jagged hole even! But they were elegant, modern ornaments, not the old-fashioned kind we usually had. (You have to remember that vintage was just old back then!) So we hung them with the bad side not showing - and I felt just like Jo in Little Women, wearing one glove and carrying the other soiled one!!

I often thought that a "themed" tree or a flocked tree or a pink tree or even an aluminum tree seemed like something that was very desirable.

But I doubt if I'd have such lovely, fond memories of a pink flocked tree with red bows and green glass balls!