My Christmas Giveaway starts tomorrow, officially, BUT, I've already received some Christmas memories from a few of you, and that's just fine with me! Letter rip! I'll count each and every one of your comments, as I said before, here on my blog, on facebook, twitter and email. Leave me good Christmas memories, as many as you wish!
I've made a jolly Stuffed Bear for one lucky son-of-a-gun!
Meet Tiny Bo Bo.
He's not that tiny though - he stands about 16" tall from the top of his ears to the tip of his socks!
I've fastened a bell with a red bow around his neck so you'll know where he is at all times. He jingles as he jives in his baby underpants with lace trim. 100% cotton, hand-sewn, hand-stuffed with embroidered eyes, nose, mouth and freckles.
Tiny Bo Bo wears red socks to keep his legs warm through the Holiday Season. Depending on where his new home is, I'm sure he'll be quite fit wearing these socks through and through.
I know the Christmas Season can get ugly at times - whether we're frazzled by shoppers, grumpy with budgets and bills, hateful in traffic or even missing loved ones. It can be lonely and sad - that's why I wanted to make ONE THING pure and happy (and 100% free)! With your Christmas memories, hopefully we can all remember (and share) happy moments that mean the world to each of us. Our blessings, rather than our disappointments. And I hope that Tiny Bo Bo reaches his winning home, and finds it warm and happy, safe and sound.
So happy remembering!!
9 comments:
For some strange reason I can't remember much about my childhood christmas'...maybe I bumped my head...BUT...of what I do remember:...
I remember being very young and my brothers waking me up at like 4am...My brother handed me a big box and told me to open it! Eek!...I ripped the paper as fast as my little hands could and then rummaged around inside the box full of newspaper...I couldn't seem to find what was inside...but my brother pulled out the wonderous gift...which was an adorable little golden brown coloured teddy bear with shiny glass eyes and a velvety red bow tie.
That's one down;)
That's just darn Cute!
Christmas has always had its ups and downs for me but there is one I'll always remember when we'd been having a particularly difficult month. We hadn't decorated the home and a really bad cold was making that Christmas Eve dismal. However, my mother would have none of that. So sometime after dark she left for a while and came back with a Christmas tree with half of the trimmings on it already! Turns out she bought the one on the store display since it was the last one there. It was quite extraordinary how much it transformed the night for us.
New reader here :)
I was a late bloomer and so I played with baby dolls for a long time and also believed in Santa longer than most. My favorite memory involves both.
I asked Santa for a wooden crib for my favorite doll and awoke early one Christmas morning. I stood at the top of the steps and peeked over the railing to see my favorite doll laying in a lovely little white wooden crib. I just knew he was real and he had listened.
growing up in an "assimilated" jewish household, we still celebrated christmas: the tree, the music, the decorations, the whole 9 yards. my mom even signed the cards for all the presents as being "from Santa". probably the one toy i wanted most as a kid was when i was about 7 or 8 years old, so i'm thinking this was around 1977/1978. it was this colorful electronic guitar that was probably the first precursor to Guitar Hero -- it had no strings, but this metallic pad you would swipe your fingers across to "strum" the chord. i wanted this thing BAD. but, it was really expensive and i didnt think there was any chance. lo and behold, christmas morning, i run to open my presents and THERE IT WAS. ripped open the box, put the batteries in, and...NOTHING...tried other batteries...still nothing. i was crushed. severely crushed. we took it back to the toy store the next day and they had none left. even went to all the toy stores around the area for the next week...and nothing. i think my mom ended up getting me underwear and socks to replace the guitar. a LOT of underwear and socks....which of course compounded my sorrow even more.
so, to this day, that electronic guitar will forever be the "one that got away". if i could remember th name of the toy, i would scour the internet to buy it, even now more than 30 years later. i would still love to have it. just the thought of it makes me happy and sad at the same time...Tiny Bo Bo, please take away my xmas sorrow!
One time I had to fly out suddenly with my dad to celebrate the holidays with my family in LA. It was very last last-minute so when we got there the annual party was in full effect...
So no one had known that I would be in thus no presents had been left for me under the Christmas tree. So in true 4 yr old fashion, I positioned myself in the middle of the living room and started balling my eyes out about how no one loved me... LOL.
Let's just say a lot of envelopes came my way...
But I wasn't interested in what was inside them... I was more interested in what had been drawn on them...
Perhaps this is where the art-lover in my started...
I had given some of the money away and bought some nice picture books. But I remember that the best thing that I had bough were presents for my favourite teddy bear... which I own to this very day.
I am not a writer and this involves two Christmases and it's a bit long, sorry.
The Christmas I remember most is when my grandparents on my mom's side came for a visit. I remember sleeping with my twin sister Amy, on the lime green with white rib trim couch, which my mom upholstered and my dad made. Since my dad mad it, it was really large and my sister and I were still small at the time. Something else that stands out in my mind also are the twin lime green afghans my sister and I both received from my grandmother, who made them herself. Having tried knitting as an adult I appreciate the afghan even more and still have it and it's as nice, comfy and sturdy as it was the day I got it from my grandmother. Anyway, the night before Christmas, my sister and I were having a very difficult time sleeping. We would get very excited and liked to get the festivities going right away in the morning. There was no 'you can open one present on Christmas Eve' in our house, so getting to sleep that night was tough. Anyway as I was trying to make myself sleep I heard the ringing on jingle bells outside, which made me all the more excited. And being obedient, as I was told if I didn't go to sleep, Santa would pass me by, I didn't look out the window to see where the jingle bells were coming from, I just closed my eyes tighter. I don't remember how old my twin and I were, but I do remember this was the first year I heard the jingle bells. I don't even remember the gifts I received either. As you can imagine, what sticks out in my mind is bright lime green, my grandparents and jingle bells. But, as with any great memory it doesn't stop there.
As I have become an adult, I have remained in Houston and my twin has lived in Oklahoma, Winnipeg, and now in Alaska. Since my parents are in Houston, my twin usually comes down to Texas every year with exception of one year. A few years back she was called for Grand Jury Duty during the Christmas Holidays and couldn't come and it didn't work out for us to all go up there. Now, as you can imagine I was a little bit sad as it is difficult to be without my twin, but something fun happened that particular Christmas that cheered me up.
Now, I grew up in the same house my whole life and as I have grown the neighborhood has changed from small bungalows to large mansions. Each time a neighbor that I grew up would move, a new bigger house went up. One of the neighbors who remained on the block was Betty. She and Eileen had lived in the house on corner lot my whole life. Now, only Betty remained, Eileen had been ill and was moved into a nursing facility up north near her family. On Christmas Eve night, I came over to my parents house to see what was going on since I still live very close by. That night while I was still there. Betty knocked on the door. She had a set of jingle bells in her hands, just like you would see on a horse or maybe even a reindeer. Did I mention, Betty played violin for Houston Symphony? Maybe that's how she got these jingle bells. She said to me, 'Would you mind helping me out tonight? I am not as young as I used to be... Can you take this bells and walk up and down this block and the next block on either side later tonight?'. Of course I said, 'Yes!". She had been doing this funny little thing for all the parents and kids in the neighborhood since I was small. Mystery solved from the first Christmas I mentioned. I am sure all the parents knew about it the whole time over the years.
I have to admit, helping her out that year cheered my up from missing my sister. And I always enjoy learning about the funny mysterious, little secret things people do to spread kindness, goodwill and happiness. Betty no longer lives in my parents neighborhood, but it was certainly fun to help her out that year.
My Christmases where never really filled with big dinners, guests, presents and huge trees. But I do know that when I was little we were invited to dinner with friends. They served rabbit meat, I know it sounds really mad and immoral, but well, we ate it and I liked it very much. So when we came to visit them again months later, I came up to the man who hosted the party and said:"Do you, by any chance, still have a piece of rabbit lying around somewhere?"
I know it's not the most magical Christmas memory anyone could have, but it still cracks me up to this day.
When I was little I used to scrunch my eyes up and stare at the tree...they go all blurry...like tiny bits of rainbow!
This is gonna sound contrived but it's true. My favorite Christmas was when I didn't buy gifts for anyone I knew and instead I went to Barns and Noble and bought books for kids drawing their names from a Tree in the store. I bought 10 copies each of "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Harold and His Purple Crayon" and gave them to children I would never meet. That is the meaning of Christmas.
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