Sometimes our most precious memories are about the simple things. To me, Christmas is about experiences, not stuff. Christmas 1934 was the first Christmas that I can remember. I knew Christmas was special because Mother considered it special. My mother seemed to be an unhappy person by nature. She had very little to be happy about other than her children. As Christmastime approached she became even more melancholy. In retrospect, I can imagine what must have been going through her mind as she tried to think of ways to make us especially happy on Christmas. Pine trees were not common to the area where we lived, but one day as we were walking near our home at the mouth of Turkey Creek, Mother spotted a live holly tree growing on the riverbank nearby. It was about five feet tall, perfectly shaped and loaded with bright red berries. We dug it up, put it in an old water bucket and took it home with us. Mother did not possess any tree ornaments or ribbons, which was just as well because further decoration of the tree would have been redundant. There were no festivities or gift exchanges that Christmas, but everyone loved and admired our tree. We children were happy and Mother was happy. Even without presents under its branches, that little holly tree remains in my memory as the prettiest Christmas tree I have ever seen. It stood in the front room of our house long after Christmas was forgotten. Enjoy the season, but remember the reason, STAN

What a beautiful image..... thanks for sharing! All of your stories bring to life another time and place and are well appreciated! Please keep sharing! a very Merry Christmas to all, Kerri (researching Chaffin/Chafin, Romans, Spaulding, Marcum, Deskins, Kirk, Roberts, Vawter...) On Dec 8, 2007, at 11:41 AM, STANLEY BROWNING wrote: Sometimes our most precious memories are about the simple things. To me, Christmas is about experiences, not stuff. Christmas 1934 was the first Christmas that I can remember. I knew Christmas was special because Mother considered it special. My mother seemed to be an unhappy person by nature. She had very little to be happy about other than her children. As Christmastime approached she became even more melancholy. In retrospect, I can imagine what must have been going through her mind as she tried to think of ways to make us especially happy on Christmas. Pine trees were not common to the area where we lived, but one day as we were walking near our home at the mouth of Turkey Creek, Mother spotted a live holly tree growing on the riverbank nearby. It was about five feet tall, perfectly shaped and loaded with bright red berries. We dug it up, put it in an old water bucket and took it home with us. Mother did not possess any tree ornaments or ribbons, which was just as well because further decoration of the tree would have been redundant. There were no festivities or gift exchanges that Christmas, but everyone loved and admired our tree. We children were happy and Mother was happy. Even without presents under its branches, that little holly tree remains in my memory as the prettiest Christmas tree I have ever seen. It stood in the front room of our house long after Christmas was forgotten. Enjoy the season, but remember the reason, STAN ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WVLOGAN- [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message