My sister is ten years older than I. She always liked to color, even now. Aren’t we lucky that today adult coloring is considered a good stress reliever? She still colors.
But I’m thinking back a few years—as far back as the 1950’s. My sister and I are young. I could have been 5 or 6 and she is 15 and 16. It’s Christmas and we always received the usual pajamas and underwear, socks, and always a surprise, or two. Even though the pajamas, socks, and underwear weren’t a surprise, it was nice to see what new designs and colors they were. Another sure gift was a coloring book and a new box of crayons. My sister
may have been given paints and a coloring book for teenagers, but our anticipation of them heightened the reception of the new gifts.
Yes, coloring was and is fun, but the best part is yet to
come.
Our Christmas trees were always real. However, the Christmas
tree stand wasn’t a stand. It was a pail
with rocks in it. The trunk of the tree was
fitted securely into the middle of the rocks.
It was my job to water the tree to keep it fresh, by making sure the
pail always had water. My sister wrapped
Christmas paper around the pail to make it look like a present.
We decorated the tree nicely. We always had plenty of tinsel and we wrapped
angel hair around as many light bulbs that we could. I think we had the prettiest tree on the
street.
The best part is coming. My memory, one of my favorite
memories, is Christmas night.
We put on our new Christmas pajamas and socks. We got out our new coloring books and crayons
and paints. We shut off all the lights in the house, except the Christmas tree
lights. Then we flattened ourselves onto our tummies
and crawled under the Christmas tree.
And we colored.
There, under the tree lights, my sister and I, and no one
else in the whole wide world knew where we were or what we were doing. It was just us, doing our sisterly tradition.
It was magical.
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