GREG, thanks for sharing your happy festive memories! Love-rly!
So I just took the liberty of posting here in the blog directly so folk won't miss it. As I read I could imagine my version of your tale, local color, scenery and all. Since I have a rather vivid imagination . . ...sometimes too much...ahem. . . lol. . .I suspect I'll store up our happy times here on The Dunes.
justin
So I just took the liberty of posting here in the blog directly so folk won't miss it. As I read I could imagine my version of your tale, local color, scenery and all. Since I have a rather vivid imagination . . ...sometimes too much...ahem. . . lol. . .I suspect I'll store up our happy times here on The Dunes.
justin
- Well, it must be nearly Christmas now I've read this.
Justin holiday-posts are great, I look forward to them for sure.
My imagination fills in the picture you broad brush and I do love it.
Thanks Justin, I won't bore you with my forthcoming Christmas, it seems to boring and colourless. Now most of my family are all gone it seems pointless.
Best to think back to all those wonderful times and people when we were all still here.
You reminded me just now of the wonderful noisy crowded gatherings we used to have at my Mum's parent's house when I was a kid.
They lived in a large old rambling ex-guest house, more bedrooms than I could count, a scary dark long hallway when I was even younger..ha. The lounge was huge, with a very large fireplace, slate tiled in front with big wood boxes either side.. plenty of room for the dozen or so stocking to hang temptingly with hints of contents poking out their tops.
A big old dining room with a looong table (I used to help granny put extra leaves in for big events, turning the handle at one end like cranking a model T)
Christmas Dinner was a real production, that large kitchen with several stoves and ovens was like a furnace... especially when the temps outside were usually in the high 30Cs or even into the 40s. It might have been a big old stone building with nice thick walls, but after a week or two of over 35s it did slowly heat up.
Mayhem in the kitchen was fun to watch... and about the only time granny ever got short with us kids... food at Christmas was all-important, more so than us kids.
You see granny and grandad were foodies, the meals at Christmas were absolute banquets.
In addition to family (and there were plenty of us) granny invited friends, usually the older widows and widowers in the community... country towns are like that, eh.
So the table groaned under the multiple plates of various meats, vegies...always salads as well, just about every condiment ever invented...sauces, chutney's etc...
After everyone was forcibly stuffed to breaking point, we'd all take a break while dishes were cleared and the mountains of deserts, granny's crowing glories, replaced the mountains of left over meats etc.
After some starters... jellies, trifles, tarts, etc... came the pudding parade. It was the culmination of the evening... in walked granny with a huge plate with a huge pudding, steaming and glistening and blue flames from the brandy flickering so close to her face.
Brilliant.... yep, writing this makes me all teary... great days our young days. The best.
Justin, make sure you really take notice even more than you already do...and store these memories from your Christmas for later life.
They are gold.
Merry Christmas all... yeah, a bit early, but now I'm in the mood, thanks Justin.
4 comments:
Noice. . . lol
Greg, your reminiscing brought back a particular memory of Christmas for me as a kid. My dad used to arrive home with a freshly cut pine, put it in a bucket of sand and stand it in a corner of the living room. Pretty soon, the entire house smelled of pine scent... and that, to me, meant Christmas time!
Hell Justin.... why don't I proof read to correct spelling and grammar!!! Bugger.
The errors stood out like sore thumbs.
Gary, yes, the pine smell. When we were little as Christmas approached Dad would announce he'd seen a particularly good one, one that was just right for us, so we'd all get in the old Holden and travel out of our small country town several miles to some spot of scrub or another and walk in, following Dad....to a nice little pine.
Back home and the ritual "planting" in the big old stone pot with some rocks to hold it up straight then some water to "give it a drink", amazing just how long the poor thing would stay green and give off that very Christmas smell, well, it was to us. I still associate freshly cut pine with happy times.
Wow!
It's great to know that these memories do exist. I hope special times like that can be passed on.
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