Flip through the television channels during this time of year, and you’re likely to come across the movie, A Christmas Story, at least once. You might sit and watch the entire movie, or maybe you’ve seen it so many times, you stop for just a few minutes to catch your favorite scene as a grown-up Ralphie Parker recalls the most memorable Christmas of his childhood. What is your most memorable childhood Christmas? I can say with all honestly that I don’t have one.

I do remember that Christmas as a kid was magical. When we were very little, Santa brought everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. We’d hang our stockings above the fireplace, and leave a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the coffee table before going to bed on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, the cookies and milk would be gone, a thank-you note left in their place, and the stockings had been filled. In the center of it all, a fully lit and decorated tree with presents stacked all around, would be standing where there wasn't a tree when we went to bed! Santa had certainly been busy while we were sleeping!

Even before we woke up, we knew Santa had come, of course. I’d heard him up on the roof during the night! This was not just a figment of my childhood imagination; my brother heard him too. He’d run into my room, and whisper excitedly, “He’s here! He’s here!” We’d have to contain our curiosity, and not go watch him come down the chimney; Santa didn’t come if he sensed he was being watched. We listened to his sleigh bells, and hear his heavy footsteps above us as he made his way across the roof.

I’m not sure when my parents stopped doing everything on Christmas Eve, or when Dad stopped getting up in the attic to ring a string of bells and stomp around loud enough to be sure we’d wake up and hear Santa on the roof. I can’t imagine the work they put into just this one night! But while it lasted, it was magic.

I can also remember being very little when making the long drive to get our pictures taken with Santa at J.L. Hudson’s on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. This was in the late sixties before my youngest brother was born, and back when Hudson’s downtown flagship store was the tallest department store in the world, and the second largest store only to Macy’s in New York. At Christmas, a 9-story Tree of Lights decorated the outside of the building. In the windows, mechanical ice skaters moved around frozen ponds with ice as smooth as glass, and mechanical elves worked making toys in Santa’s workshop. There were closer places my parents could have taken us to see Santa, but everyone even remotely close to the Detroit area knew the “real” Santa only came to Hudson’s downtown. I never remember seeing Santa though; I’ve only seen the pictures of my brother and me on his lap as proof that he was there amidst my memories of the lights, and mechanical elves.

The one time I do remember seeing Santa was not at a department store. Neither did he ride in a sleigh filled with presents and pulled by reindeer. He drove a snowmobile, and the sleigh was filled with neighborhood kids. He pulled up to the house one snowy night, whisking us all off to a lodge in the woods. Outside, the parking lot was full of snowmobiles; inside the lodge was full of children. We had punch and cookies while Santa passed out presents. I don’t remember what he gave me – maybe a doll, it was, or a coloring book – it doesn’t matter. The thing that stands out in my memory is lying in that sleigh, warm and snug with neighborhood friends under layers of blankets, and watching the snow swirl above us as we sped through the night. I also remember that Santa looked suspiciously like our neighbor ... obviously because the real Santa was at Hudson’s.

There is not one thing I remember wanting was much as Ralphie wanted an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. In fact, not one Christmas present I received stands out in my mind at all. The gift I do remember well was one Dad gave to Mom. It’s what I’ve come to know since having my own kids, as The Mom Purse; the kind of purse so big it can hold an entire family’s belongings on any given outing, because it’s sure that’s where they will end up. It’s the kind of purse that makes women who carry them permanently lopsided, with one shoulder lower than the other. Mom searched through its many compartments as if there might be a fortune buried somewhere amidst the wads of paper puffing out the purse to show off its full Mom Purse capacity. Finally, she found it! With a look of joy on her face, she held it up for every one to see. It was a penny. “You remembered!” she said to my Dad, who was beaming at remembering whatever it was he was supposed to remember.

 “What’s so special about a penny?” I asked, wondering why she would get so excited over something, even back then, that was of so little value. “You know that finding a penny is good luck,” she explained, “and finding a penny inside a new purse or wallet means it’ll never be empty. It means the giver is wishing you good fortune.” There might have been more significance to this small gesture than I understood then or even now; something more that it represented only between Mom and Dad. I’m not sure why I remember this short little scene so distinctly either. But it’s as clear – right down to the excited expression on my Mom’s face – as if it happened yesterday. Perhaps it’s because that’s when I first understood that it’s not how big or small the gift, it’s the thought that goes into it that matters.   

There are other small memories I have from the Christmases of my childhoog ... listening to my dad sing Handel’s “Messiah” with the interfaith choir, and fidgeting on the hard wooden pews of the church, until at last, the concert concluded with the Hallelujah Chorus. Then all my fidgeting stopped; I was entranced, completely moved by the beauty of the music. Hearing the Hallelujah Chorus still gives me chills to this day. There was sledding at Yates Cider Mill, with all of us kids piled on top of my dad on our long wooden toboggan. “You’re going to break your necks!” was Mom’s version of “You’ll shoot your eye out!” heard by Ralphie over and over in A Christmas Story. Yet somehow we all made it to bottom of the hill each and every time. Our reward for not breaking our necks was hot cider and warm doughnuts from the mill.

Coming home at night after family outings such as those, I remember seeing the huge blue star blazing atop our house. Dad had found it discarded among rubble at the dump one year. Made from aluminum piping, he’d strung it with blue lights, and erected it every Christmas on the roof. I saw it recently while we were cleaning out Mom’s house, still stored on its nail in the garage, forty years after Dad rescued it the dump. The blue bulbs have long since burned out, but the memories of seeing it lit on top of the house shine as brightly as the star once did.

My childhood Christmas memories come in bits and pieces – just short little scenes played out in my head. There’s not a single memory that stands above the rest as being grander than any other, and nothing as singularly spectacular as Raphie’s Christmas of the Red Ryder BB-gun. They are more like Mom’s penny. They’re little things that to me represent a small fortune. I am a lucky woman, indeed.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season filled with all the stuff of great memories.

I am not a creative person; I’m don’t sew, quilt, bake, knit, do wood-working, or anything else that requires patience, practice, and time to produce beautiful handmade gifts or delicious culinary treats to give at Christmas and ornaments to decorate my home during the holidays.

I love homemade gifts and decorations; when I receive something that someone took the effort to make, it warms my heart ... oooo, especially those delectable goodies that make me imagine the good smells coming out of the kitchens of those who made them. So what’s a person with practically no creative talent, but with a desire to share that warmth, do?

I garden; I like plants. I always think I’d like to make heavenly scented botanical soaps to give as gifts, but when December approaches, I realize I’ve forgotten to gather the desired plants before they turned brown and crispy, or are buried beneath snow.

While a snow covered landscape is not the time to clip fresh flowers and herbs, it does present seasonal inspiration. All it takes is a walk through the snow, some garden pruners and loppers, and a few other basic supplies to get my house looking festive, and me in the Christmas gift-making spirit. Here are a few holiday decorating ideas and gifts that don’t require much creativity, foresight, time, and ever-so-importantly these days – money.

Evergreens have been traditionally used as symbols of Solstice and Christmas for centuries. Following this tradition, I cut Douglas fir, juniper, and holly boughs. Yews, Christmas fern fronds, boxwood, euonymus varieties, arborvitae, and false cypress can also be used for decorating, and give a different texture to the traditional Christmas boughs of pine, spruce, fir, and holly.

For color and structural contrast, I chose red-twig dogwood stems, curly willow branches, and winterberry (a type of holly that loses its leaves; the bare stems loaded with big red berries are very striking). Other things that provide structure and a delicate contrast to evergreen boughs are birch twigs, grapevine, bittersweet, or any branch that’s not so thick that it will over-power the softness of the evergreens.

Let’s begin with the front porch. I like to keep it very simple, but if you prefer more glitz, any of these decorations can be festooned with bows, ornaments, and all things shiny. Bare branches can even be spray-painted white, silver, gold, or red for a flashier look.

Inside a beat-up old basket that has seen much better days, I placed a bucket of dirt which I shoveled way back before the ground froze. A bucket of snow works just as well. The dirt (or snow) is used as an anchor to keep the basket from blowing over in the wind, as well as a medium in which to arrange the branches. When making any arrangement, cut branches to varying lengths, but keep them in proportion to the container, placing them in at different angles, rather than straight up and down. This prevents them from looking like little evergreen soldiers standing in formation.

The flower boxes on either side of the steps get the same treatment. Branches are lashed securely to the railing with twine.

I cheated a bit on the wreath. I’ve made them in years past, but this one I purchased from Shelby’s friend Kendall, as a fundraiser for the junior prom. I like Kendall; with dreadlocks bouncing and an impish grin, he brought in my carload of groceries before he sprung the fundraising bit on me. How could I resist after that? No matter how much I like Kendall, though, I was not going to fork over to the prom committee an extra $20 for a few sprigs of holly. I ordered a plain wreath, and spruced it up (no pun intended) by wiring in holly, winterberry, and redtwig dogwood stems.

Voila! The front porch is done. No, not up to Martha Stewart’s standards, but unlike many of Martha’s decorating projects, it didn’t cost a penny (except for the wreath), and was finished in no time.

Next comes centerpieces to give as gifts. Supplies needed are Oasis floral foam (found at any florist), evergreen boughs, and a container that holds water. Keith once brought home a bunch of Easter baskets of varying sizes that he found someone had set out for the trash (it made me laugh, considering he’s always teasing me being a trash-picker). To make the baskets watertight, I lined them with plastic butter or deli containers that always seem to multiply like rabbits in my Tupperware cupboard.

First step is soaking the Oasis block until it’s saturated. For small baskets, I sometimes reuse Oasis I’ve saved from floral arrangements I’ve received earlier in the year. It looks pretty icky, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, it’ll all get covered so no one will see it.

Just as with the outside arrangements, remember to angle stems of varying lengths into the Oasis, working all the way around the basket until it’s nice and full, and the foam doesn’t show anymore.

Shannon helped me with a basket for her teacher by putting pencils into cellophane treat bags, tying them with ribbon, and sticking them into the arrangement.

For those who aren’t the traditional red and green type, I’ve used orange winterberry, dried PG hydrangea blossoms, and bare bittersweet vine. Dried roses, rose hips, poppy pods, milkweed pods, and of course, pinecones also look nice mixed with evergreens.

All the greens and berries get sprayed with an anti-dessicant, also referred to as an anti-tranpirant. This is not only used as winter protection for broad-leaf evergreens, it also holds the moisture in cut greens, keeping them from drying out and losing their needles, and prevents the berries from shriveling. “Wilt-pruf” is a brand name product sold in many box-stores and garden centers, but it’s quite expensive. Check with your local nursery; we buy a similar product in bulk concentrate, sell it in one ounce containers which when mixed with water makes a gallon, and pass the savings along to our customers. A gallon of Wilt-Pruf can run from $30 to $50 dollars; an ounce of concentrate of the same type product that we sell, costs $3.50. I highly recommend using an anti-dessicant; sprayed greens stay fresh for weeks longer than those without the spray.

If making arrangements ahead of time, store them in a cool place that doesn’t freeze (45 degrees is ideal). An unheated garage or mudroom is perfect. Water the oasis every three to four days so it stays damp. Once brought inside the house, an arrangement should last for about three weeks to a month.

Another thing I’ve made to give as gifts started this summer when a neighbor cut down a mulberry tree, setting the wood out on the parkway for yard-waste pick-up. Keith asked if he could have the wood to use in our firepit. Stacked in the woodpile, I noticed one of the cut ends of a log was in the shape of a heart. Keith cut the log with a chain saw into approximately one inch thick slices for me, and “Heartwood” was born….though I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

Again, I decided to keep it simple and rustic-looking. Leaving the wood unsanded, I applied a light coat of spray shellac. I strung binder’s twine with a few natural looking beads, wrapping it around the wood slices. Another piece of twine criss-crosses the first, and beneath it, I tucked typed poems or quotes that in some way reminded me of the person to whom I’d be giving it.

Whew! I’m done being creative for the year, and get to go have fun at a Christmas party this weekend! The hostess gets a basket and heart, and oh, shoot! I almost forgot I have to bring a favorite dish to pass. If cooking was as quick and easy as the basket and heart making, I’d be set.