Hard as it is to believe, next Thursday will be AFTER Christmas! So I figured I would put in a couple of Christmas pictures out there for today.
The first one is all of us standing in line on Christmas morning last year, waiting for the opportunity to hand out gifts to children who might get nothing otherwise. Called the Arctic League, it is a great way to start your Christmas morning … and in spite of the cold it leaves you feeling warm inside.
The crew is – me, Lisa, my brother John, Chris and Danny.
After standing in line, we go into a building and get a couple of bags to deliver along with a tag and a map … and off we go! Soon enough we are back home and warm drinking coffee or cocoa and unwrapping our gifts.
Now let’s jump back a few years … or rather a few decades! This picture is from 1971, and has John, Karen (with a doll almost as big as her) and me (with astronaut GI Joe). It is a scan of an old slide from my parents – I have hundreds that I digitized!
How do I place it (aside from already knowing)? Karen was born in 1969, and we moved from one side of Stoughton to the other in November of 1972. The room we are standing in was front porch on Page Street (now a warehouse sits at that address, part of an industrial park that took over the street), which was an addition where the tree was located.
It is always great looking back at pictures and bringing memories into your mind. Despite being so young (6.5 years) when we moved I do actually have memories of the house on Page Street. I remember that porch very well, and especially from Christmas.
What are some of your new and old Christmas memories? Do you have cool old pictures to remind you of when you were little?
Running Around the Bend 
Wow Arctic League sounds so amazing! I wish we had something like that around here. I help with a Toys for Tots drive every year, but I really love the way that this one is on Christmas morning. 🙂
Your pictures make me smile and want to dig out all my photo albums! We have LOTS of photos from every holiday when I was younger. I think my favorite Christmas was the year that we went to Florida to surprise my grandparents for the holiday. They had no idea we were coming and I will never forget their faces when they opened the door! Now I’m busy making new memories with my daughter. This is the first Christmas that she is really aware of what is going on and we’ve been having so much fun visiting Santa and seeing train gardens and all sorts of fun stuff like that, plus this year I’ve taken her with me to take treats to our local fire stations to thank them for keeping our neighborhoods safe. I hope that can become a tradition for us every year!
Thanks Lauren! It is amazing what has happened with pictures within my lifetime – we have gone from pictures being more posed and rare to having a visual record of everything (and generally multiple shots to ensure we get the good one). I am glad we have so many of our boys growing up (and thanks to phones they have so many of their life in school) … it will be exciting for you to have a record as your daughter grows 🙂
The holidays are a great time to reminisce and look at old pictures!!! And continue on all of your family traditions!
Definitely – traditions are a great thing. Many of ours started when it was just Lisa and I, and therefore they are not just attached to the kids. And even when kids are little and it is you doing everything, it builds a sense of continuity and as they get older – it was really great having them re-engage with traditions this year.
Arctic League sounds like something our family would love to do, I wish there was something like that here.
I love looking through old photo’s, my parents have thousands of old slides and we bought my dad a scanner a few years ago so now my brother and I have copies of us a littles. We always have a good laugh sharing the stories that go with them and I love teasing him about how much hair he use to have.
Love the old photo!
I think it is amazing the power of a single image to transport you through time and space to your childhood. 🙂