Carolyn and I started putting out a ‘Christmas Newsletter’ in 2003 highlighting memorable events from the year. Last year I thought it would be neat to include a page of “Christmas Memories” from our younger days. To my astonishment, she was not able to locate one single photo of her at Christmas as a little girl. I was incredulous. I have multiple photos of each and every one of my 35 Christmases – with just one exception.
And this might be key to understanding why Carolyn’s family didn’t have any photos. Maybe they were much too busy enjoying the moment, basking in the love of their family to be bothered with snapping photos, worried less about preserving it and more about enjoying it. Maybe this is why we have only three photos that I can locate from my first Christmas.
It’s a nice thought, but it is not entirely the case. Despite only having the three known photographs from Christmas 1971, I do have a home movie with some scenes from my very first Christmas. The real reason for the lack of photos is simply that my Dad did not have his good camera yet. This he did not get until later in 1972 at which time he immediately began snapping piles of color slides.
My parents had only shared one Christmas as a married couple before this one, but already the tradition of being with my Dad’s family on Christmas Eve and with my Mom’s family on Christmas Day was beginning. This tradition is still loosely adhered to today.
Putting together the order of events from available Super 8 films and snapshots, it appears that we spent Christmas Eve at Arline and Carl’s house with Bill and Dottie and their kids, Grandma and Oscar, John and Pat, Joe and Hazel, and Harold. The evening can be characterized by the fact that my Mom was wearing an orange creamsicle for an outfit. I picked up some swell loot from all accounts including a walker from Grandma Range, a musical bird from Bill and Dottie, a music box for the playpen from Arline and Carl, a sleeper from Harold, and a piggy bank from Joe and Hazel.
After the evening at Arline and Carl’s, we came home and my parents exchanged gifts with one another. I was stuffed into my pajamas and cast aside to watch the ceremonies continue. My Dad mugged for the camera when he received a yellow shirt and acted as if it were the greatest gift in the history of man. Taking a gander under the aluminum tree, I recognize several items that hung around well into my teenage years (at which time they were by then considered junk) like the green electric skillet and the blue and white sewing machine.
Christmas Day fell on a Saturday in 1971 and we spent the morning with my Dad’s immediate family. Bill and Dottie, Lora and Robby, and Grandma and Oscar came over and we all opened more gifts. From Mommy and Daddy I got a teddy bear, toybox, mobile for the crib, and a baby lamp. I patiently sat by – apparently secure, but looking as if I was going to slide right out of the punkin seat and onto the floor – and just observed as everyone else jostled around the room.
I currently have no hard evidence, but I am certain that after the morning festivities at our house, we went over to my Grandma
and Grandpa Murphy’s house on Cunnington. There I began to rake in the gifts again from my Mom’s family: two sleepers and a stuffed dog from Grandma and Grandpa, a rack-a-stack and squeeze frog from Diana and Tom, Pampers from Bev, a Winnie the Pooh toy from Jim, and a rattle from Darlene. I was only the third grandchild on both sides of the family, so for a while I got gifts from everyone.
The photo above left and below are most certainly not from Christmas as I look too skinny – Thanksgiving maybe, but not Christmas. But they were both taken at a family get-together at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The kids in the photo below are my Mom’s cousin Bobbie’s daughter Becky, me, Cathy, and Lori.
Please enjoy the Super 8 home movies in their entirety in the video capture below.
Up next: 1972!!
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