With my father's health deteriorating so quickly, I started thinking about different parts of my childhood. And you know the one time of the year that has the most memories? Christmas!
Growing up, we did not have a lot of money. Like most families we struggled at times. As a child, I never realized it. I had a lot of love, respect and caring in my family. I had the best parents in the world. They never went anywhere their children could not go.
Christmas was even better. We always had a wonderful gift under the tree on Christmas morning from Santa Claus. Always in "Santa" paper, direct from the North Pole!
We lived in a small town in the center of Washington State. We would travel to Seattle sometime before Christmas to visit with my grandparents and visit Santa Claus in the Space Needle. Santa always knew my name and my sister's name. He always asked us about either our teacher (by name) our dog (by name), sometimes even fights we had gotten in sometime during the year with our cousins or neighborhood kids. Santa really did "know when we were naughty or nice"
In our small town, we would also visit Santa at the local shopping center. Again, he knew us by name, he knew different things about my parents jobs, he knew about camping trips.
Santa Claus would call my sister and I during the summer and on our birthdays. Or whenever anything major occurred in our lives. Like when my father was laid up with a broken leg and out of work for 3 months. Santa Claus called just to see how we were doing.
Let's not forget the Christmas Eve get togethers that were held at our house with all the cousins. Santa would stop by to visit us special, before he left for his trip around the world!
When other kids would tell me there was no such thing as Santa, I would simply tell them they were wrong.
In Seattle the Santa Claus was my father's uncle.
1966
1968
In my hometown, Santa worked with my mother. He is also the Santa that would stop by the house after he was finished at the shopping center on Christmas Eve.
1972
Those are my favorite memories of childhood and Christmas.
What are yours?
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