Christmas Memories

Christmas... one of my favorite times of the year...

These are a few of my favorite Christmas photos and memories...

These first three pictures were taken in 1969...
Matt's second Christmas...


The picture above is me and Matt... he couldn't hold still for a picture and wanted to get on with opening the presents.


Grammy Juleen gets a kiss from Matt

Of course, Matt got a LOT of presents, being the first grandchild, and our first child. He was just so excited with each and every gift he opened, whether a toy or clothes; it didn't matter. Grammy had a full length mirror in her entry hall and when Matt would open a box with clothes, he would run over to the mirror holding them up in front of himself to see how he looked. He got pajamas and this little red robe from Grammy and Grampa and just had to give Grammy a kiss.


Matt also got this little airplane that same Christmas, a wagon, lots of clothes and lots of books... he loved reading books.

Matt was just 13 months old that Christmas and was talking quite a bit for his age. One thing he would say was, "pree lil lice" (pretty little lights) pointing to any Christmas lights he saw as we drove around town.

I have to say Christmas 1969 was one of my very favorite Christmas's and is one of my favorite memories.


One of my very favorite photos of Matt and Jill...
This is our Christmas card photo from 1972.
Matt was just 4 and Jill was 2 1/2.
We took a whole roll of film, trying to get a good picture for our Christmas card and in every picture they were giggling and laughing and just having the most fun... not looking at the camera. We never did get the picture we thought we wanted... but we got a lot of good fun ones that I treasure even more.




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Fall

One of my favorite childhood memories easily rushes into my being with the smell of burning leaves on a crisp fall afternoon.



To paint the complete picture for you, I swear, on the actual day of this memory, along with the smell of burning leaves, I can remember Daddy is taking down the screens, Mother is washing the storm windows for him to put up, Jerri and I are playing. We live in a little house, painted yellow at the time, at 2516 West Louise Street, just three houses east of Blaine. There is the sound of the Nebraska football game on the radio. The announcers excitedly calling the play by play and something about someone named Bobby Reynolds.

Is it Oct 7, 1950, the game against Minneapolis, MN when super sophomore Bobby Reynolds leads the underdog Huskers to a 32-26 win, the Cornhuskers first win at Minnesota since 1902, Reynolds running 17 times for 161 yards and 2 TDs or is it November 4, 1950, the game against Missouri in Lincoln when the Nebraska Cornhuskers win an offensive shootout with a 40-34 victory. Bobby Reynolds gains 183 yards, including an amazing 33 yard TD in which he retreats 40 yards before heading up field.

I don't know. Bobby Reynolds played for the Cornhuskers from 1950-52. I would have been 6-8 those years. I'm thinking it was 1950. The photos included in this story were taken in December 1950.




I read one time in an article about writing that the author should "paint a picture" with his words by addressing the four W's: who, what, where, and when and the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

I think I have seven or eight of the nine covered. I suppose touch could be the crisp, cool fall breeze as it brushes my face or maybe even the feel of the cold plastic covers on the handle bars of my trike?? I don't have a taste to go with the memory... ??? The taste of my chewing gum?? Caramel apples?? Nope... there is no taste to go with my story... although caramel apples do sound pretty yummy... sorry!

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Bobby Reynolds game stats quoted from: The Best of the Big Red

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Wanderlust...
a German word roughly meaning the love of travel or desire to travel...

I love to travel... love to be "gone" from home, work, responsibilities... Happiness might be traveling 24-7-365 around the country, the world, no real schedule or route planned, stopping when something looked interesting.

Where did I get this?? Definitely NOT from my Mother... My Mother loves nothing more than sitting in her little house, reading a book or working a puzzle... she gets "homesick" sitting in her own living room around dusk... she has been known to start out on a vacation only to return home in 2 or 3 days instead of the planned week or so.

I guess I got my wanderlust from my Grandmother Adda Rockwell Sipple. I'm told she always wanted to be a gypsy or to join the circus... she thought it would be exciting... because they got to travel, I would think. Imagine having that desire yet growing up in the early 1900s when travel was hard, there were few good roads and few cars and not much money for luxuries like traveling out of necessity let alone for pleasure. However... while my Grandmother didn't join either a band of gypsies or the circus, she did manage to marry a man who worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and had a pass on which his family could travel any time, any where they wanted... and she did.

We have these pictures of Adda... which I love...



I like to think this is Adda in her "gypsy" outfit... but Mother thinks she was maybe in some play and this was the costume she wore for it. I guess we'll never know. Maybe she was pretending she was the gypsy she always dreamed of being.








The next two photos and the last one were taken in the years before many women wore pants; Adda has on pants. I love that!

The first was taken on a trip to visit her brother Jesse Rockwell in Colorado. Is she really shooting or just posing?






On the same trip to Colorado, Adda & Joy walking hand in hand...


















In this photo Adda is shown with Charles & Opal at the beach of Lake Michigan on a visit to Joy's sister Ethel who lived in Chicago.









This photo shows Adda & Opal wading in the Pacific Ocean surf... They went to California after Opal graduated to visit one of Adda's brothers. Opal says they had an hour to kill when they changed trains in Salt Lake City so they decided to go down town to see the Catherdral. They barely made it back, the train was pulling out as they got there and they had to run and jump aboard or miss it.



In the last photo Adda is again on the beach by the Pacific Ocean. This was on a later trip to California to visit Joy & Juleen who were living in the Long Beach area in the 1940s.

(Wading in the ocean is also a very favorite pastime of mine... no matter how cold, I have to wade for a little bit.)







I love that I inherited my wanderlust from my Grandmother Adda Rockwell Sipple.