A Christmas Guest

Christmas is a magical time. So why not wish for a special Christmas guest. If I could invite one ancestor to Christmas dinner, this year I would choose my 3^rd great grandmother, Elizabeth Paul, of Curry Mallet, England.

Elizabeth or Betsey was born in 1807 to John Paul and Sarah Mead in Curry Mallet. She married Henry Strong of Saint Decuman’s Parish on 9 May 1829 in Beercrocrombe.

Elizabeth and Henry Strong had three daughters: Sarah Caroline, Emma and Fanny. Following the 1840 death of her husband, Henry, Betsey supported her family by working as a rag sorter. 

At 45 years of age, Elizabeth led her three daughters and mother, Sarah Paul, age 76 to Bristol, England. Together the five women boarded the Shannon and set sail for New York along with 106 other passengers and 12 infants. Elizabeth, Sarah Caroline, Emma and Fanny were officially received into the United States on 12 June 1849. Elizabeth’s mother died aboard ship. What motivated such an adventuresome trip?

The women settled in Skaneateles, New York where Elizabeth married John Willmont.  She lived in Skaneateles for eleven years. Elizabeth Paul Strong Willmont died 23 April 1860. My cousin and I visited her grave at the Lakeview Cemetery in downtown Skaneateles.  I doubt Elizabeth ever considered the idea of great, great, great granddaughters searching for her or visiting her grave. Would she be pleased?

I would love to have Elizabeth sit at my dining table surrounded by seven of her great, great, great granddaughters and serve her Christmas dinner. Conversation would be peppered with unending questions from curious granddaughters. I would particularly watch her reaction when dessert was served. Would she recognize the plum pudding?

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memoires: Holiday Travel

For a brief period of time of about five years, my family meaning my husband and children traveled to Montana on Christmas vacation. We left on December 26^th for four of those five years.

One fateful year we decided to leave on Christmas morning. I had the day perfectly planned. We had the first flight out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. I arranged for a three-hour layover time in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our connecting flight would get us to Montana in plenty of time for a lovely Christmas dinner with dear friends. Dinner reservations had been made at Bucks T-4 Ranch in Big Sky, Montana at a table in front of their roaring fireplace. It was a perfect plan.

We arrived at O’Hare Airport early that Christmas morning and waited eagerly for our flight to depart on time. It was the first flight of the day! What could possibly detain it? As things go, the pilot was late, very late. We suspect he was enjoying Christmas morning with his family leaving a planeload of people sitting in the airport for hours and hours. His tardiness resulted in our very late arrival in Salt Lake City.

To rub "salt" in our wounds, so to speak, we missed our connecting flight. Salt Lake City Airport was in chaos. You know you are in trouble when the “Red Coats” appear. I can best describe these gentlemen as crisis managers! Yes, they had a flight for us in first class the next day. We spent Christmas Day in the Salt Lake City airport with children crying and exclaiming that this was their worst Christmas ever!

That cozy dinner with friends in front of roaring fire never occurred. Christmas dinner that year consisted of a soup in a bread bowl and Cinnabons. Those sweet, cinnamon buns didn’t ease my children’s pain.

We pleaded our case and eventually boarded a flight to Montana at about 11:30 that evening. Our weary family eventually arrived at our final destination in the wee hours of December 26^th.

It is a Christmas we will always remember.

Holiday Happenings

Christmas 1985 is my most memorable Christmas. My Christmas gift weighed in at 8 pounds, 9 ounces. He was due on December 26^th but my gift arrived nine days early on December 16^th! We were home from the hospital in plenty of time to celebrate his first Christmas.

His sister took this Polaroid photograph to nursery school and introduced her class to her newest brother. She called him our brown baby.

Jimmy has never felt neglected or short changed with his birthday being so close to Christmas. In fact, he loves it even today! As a child, Jimmy’s excitement level rose dramatically each December. The anticipation of his birthday and Christmas coming within nine days of each other caused our already busy boy to go into hyper speed. Each year I would warn his teachers that educating him might prove challenging during his favorite month of the year.

Christmas would not be present in our home until after his birthday was celebrated. Eventually his disappointment grew and Christmas appeared earlier but always focusing on his special day.

Tomorrow we are celebrating his birthday! We will gather around the dinner table, feast and tell Jimmy stories! I love all my children, but Jimmy will always be my Christmas Gift.

Fruitcake: Friend or Foe

I say Foe!

Fruitcake touched my lips once as a child.  Visions of those sticky fruit chunks give me nightmares! Oh how I remember how I had to force myself to finish that one bite. Forty plus years have passed and fruitcake has yet to touch my lips again.

My grandmother was a friend of fruitcake. She would bring the blue tin over each Christmas and relish every bite! I cannot understand why.

I just spent a moment reviewing my fellow bloggers’ opinions of fruitcake and discovered several people who enjoy fruitcake. There appears to be a strong preference for homemade fruitcake and I believe this is where the difference lies.  Prince William and Kate Middleton chose fruitcake for their wedding cake! I am sure their pastry chef created a fruitcake far superior to our blue tin of fruitcake.

Today’s posts have opened my eyes to the possibility of someday giving fruitcake a second chance.

The Christmas Advent Calendar and Holiday Parties

Sometimes I feel a bit like Scrooge. My tired, worn-out self is usually fighting a cold this time of year. A nap on the sofa and a date with the Hallmark Channel seems much more inviting than a holiday party. I really like the Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. They are wholesome movies that always have a happy ending! 

My favorite holiday parties occurred a number of years ago. We used to gather with our dear friends, The Hammans, on Christmas Eve Eve. The Hammans and the Dooleys have a long history. Somehow both our families share the same names: Dave, Linda, Jim, Charlie, variations of the name Chris and Will!

We would celebrate our families’ friendship on Christmas Eve Eve with a dinner of roast turkey and all the trimmings. It was not a fancy party, just good food to nourish our bodies and our friendship. That tradition has passed on, but I fondly remember those days!

Merry Christmas,

Linda

The Sixth Day of Advent means It Must Be Santa!

 Christmas Wishes circa 1927

The Fifth Day of Advent = Outdoor Lights

Chevy Chase’s antics in the movie Christmas Vacation makes me chuckle every Christmas season! My Dad was our family’s “exterior illumination specialist.” He always did a great job lighting the outside of our home minus Chevy’s antics.

Dad decorated our home with strings of beautiful red, green, yellow and blue colored bulbs. They were the big, old fashioned bulbs not the tiny ones of today. Dad pulled out his trusty ladder and decorated our home in all kinds of weather transforming our little home into something magical. Oh, how we waited in anticipation as he worked away.

As we grew older, kids in the neighborhood changed. They started spoiling Dad’s fun by cutting the strings of lights. Out he marched wondering what on earth happened only to learn the truth. Never fear, out came another string of lights to replace the damaged ones. No one would stop our lamplighter from brightening the Christmas sky!

What better day to pay tribute to my lamplighter, Father! On December 5, 2005, Dad passed quietly away. The Apostle Paul tells us that what we see is temporary and what we don’t see is eternal. God Bless my Father, Marvin Otto Meyer. While I no longer see him in person, his light shines in all whose lives he touched.

With Loving Gratitude,

Linda