Friday's FIVE!

We had another wonderful Christmas Day - Celebrating the birth of our Savior... gathering together with family... eating and laughing - and exchanging gifts. I'm so thankful for all of my family - and the love we have for each other. This was a wonderful Christmas with many fun celebrations and services. Decking the halls kicked off the season - with parties hosted by friends, family and employers. We especially enjoyed seeing Tyler in the entertaining CSA Christmas program. We enjoyed the Candlight Christmas Eve service at Center United Methodist Church. We enjoyed fellowship and food and fun with the Lankenau family on Christmas day at 12:00PM and at 3PM we were back at Yellow Creek for a celebration with Katie, Phil, Tyler and Trevor...Betsy and Debbie...Mom and our nephew and niece, Jack and Allie. We were blessed with our newest grandson, Trevor this year...it was fun celebrating his first Christmas - and the blessing of Debbie as an official member of our family following their marriage in Hawaii in November. There is something special about every Christmas...

however, we all have those that stand out in our memory. This is certainly not all of my memories of wonderful Christmas celebrations, however, this weeks Friday's FIVE! is a collection of five of very memorable Christmases....

1. Approx. 1962 - I was about 4 years old, and I can remember waking up to a childs Christmas wonderland.... Santa had certainly come! We had hand knit stockings with our names on them...filled so full the items were falling from the stockings. Santa brought me a Betsy Wetsy doll and a stacking bunk bed and a baby carriage....all left under the tree that was adorned with those big lights that get too hot to even touch. Roger had a a big Bazooka gun ... and I think I remember a football helmet. It was the kind of Christmas a child remembers forever. We always would celebrate our Christmas mornings at home - Christmas Eve's were at Grandma and Grandpa Pences - We went to Grandma and Grandpa Alexanders later on Christmas morning until 1968... after that, they would come to our house. Grandma would wear her Christmas 'smock' and bring the coffee cake. Those are happy Christmas Memories at 52nd street...

2. Christmas 1973 - I was 15 years old...and it was the first Christmas that my Grandma and Grandpa Pence were not in Indiana to celebrate with us...They were snowbirds and had decided to stay in Sunny Florida rather than make the trek back to our hoosier winter wonderland. That year on Christmas Eve, instead of Grandma and Grandpa's house, we gathered at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Wildwood for a Pence family celebration. I can remember talking to my Grandma on the phone and being very sad that I wasn't with her. She made Wildwood Christmases special with red knit stockings hanging from the mantel - and the envelopes that were placed on the Christmas tree. I can remember Wildwood Christmas Eves vividly - I remember the ambulance that would bring my great Aunt Vera from her nursing home to celebrate with us...and I can remember playing in the basement with my brother and my cousins - those were happy days in Wildwood.... Later we had many, many happy memories at my parents home in Wildwood...a very special place to the Pence family!

3. Christmas of 1986 and we lived on Koldyke Drive - Steve and I had an especially good year at the Christmas tree lot. (We sold Christmas trees at the lumber yard in Wabash for Christmas spending money)... Santa Claus brought the girls desks filled with many desk and school supplies - the living room was full of toys and Santa brought the family a computer. We always spent Christmas morning at home with egg casserole and coffee cake. We would leave cookies for Santa and carrots for the Reindeer... Santa would often leave footprints for the girls to see.

We would go to Steve's Mom and Dad's on Christmas eve - Candlelight Church at 11PM and then we went to my Mom and Dads in the afternoon on Christmas day. Memories of my children in that big living room on Koldyke drive at Christmas are happy memories!

4. Christmas of 2000 - The first Christmas with our grandson. The first year we celebrated with him was a reminder to me that life goes on... and that this child was my legacy, that I would not live forever, but that a part of me would. Our 1888 Victorian home on Spencer Avenue in Marion was the perfect setting for wonderful Christmas celebrations with our family and our friends and neighbors. It was a beautiful home and we would spend weeks decorating and preparing for the holiday - we put up 5 Christmas trees in that house. Candles would illuminate every window. I believe there were 53 window candles in that house. Steve and I hosted a big Christmas party every year in that home and I loved the days of preparing for that party... however, that year... the focus was on this beautiful child. There wasn't a Christmas party that year or any year after that...but the gift of my grandchild, Tyler gave me hope for happy days ahead of me!

5. Christmas of 2001 - the year of change! I lived on Nelson street after my divorce. It was a hard year - the kids went to Steve's family on Christmas Eve, and I was in the house alone that day - but we all met together at Church that night. It was a night of heavy snow, and Betsy and Bruce went sledding after church! Bruce and I were getting pretty serious ... and I suspected an engagement was forthcoming, however - he was struggling with his business and he told me he would have to 'make' my engagement ring. Christmas morning he presented me with a hand whittled, wooden ring with a fake diamond glued to it. It looked like something right out of a Flintstone cartoon - but the real message of the gift is what mattered - my soulmate wanted to spend the rest of his life with me...we were engaged to be married! Bruce also gave me a bicycle backpack that year...and buried deep in one of the pockets of the backpack was my 'real' engagement ring - a beautiful solitare diamond. We celebrated that Christmas morning with Betsy, Katie, Phil and Tyler. It was my first Christmas celebration with the Lankenau family and Bruce's first celebration at Wildwood with the Pence family. Christmas is special for Bruce and I because our first 'real' date was on Christmas night ... 1974. I was 16 and he was 19 and we saw the movie, Airport '75 after our family celebrations were complete... We met each other again at Charmayne and Danny's Christmas Eve Eve party...and later, we were engaged in 2001 on Christmas Day! A difficult transitional year that ended up bringing many happy years ahead of us!

~~~~As I indicated earlier - this is not an all inclusive list....I've been blessed to have so many happy wonderful Christmas memories... Another significant Christmas was Christmas of 2007.

That is the first year that we celebrated Christmas Day at Yellow Creek Lake - and I loved every minute... I love that my Grandsons are able to build memories of Christmas in a place that is so special to so many generations for me. Ironically - our family has been coming to Yellow Creek Lake since the early 1930's and 2007 was the first year that there was ever a Christmas Day celebration at Yellow Creek... the first of many more to come!!!

Here's hoping this was a joyous Christmas that brought many happy memories for everyone!