Christmas is my favorite holiday! My earliest memories of Christmas thrilled me! It was a real happy time to go with my brothers and sisters and our father to find a pretty green cedar tree to cut for our home. The cedar fragrance was pleasant.
Decorations of strings of popcorn and mistletoe, along with a few bright paper ornaments, gave the tree beauty. There was always a selected place to hang our stockings. But we did not have a fireplace or chimney for Santa Claus to bring his sleigh load of presents. Somehow, our stockings were filled.
Toys were not a part of the presents. There would be an orange at the bottom of the stocking, one Brazil nut, and one chocolate drop. On top would be roasted peanuts and pecans--homegrown treats.
The Christmas party at the local one-room schoolhouse was a program attended by all grade school kids and their parents. Caroling and student recitations of poems, while the parents sipped hot apple cider, seemed to throw warmth throughout the gala evening.
I liked Christmas so well that I through there should be more such holidays and celebrations that only one each year. So I decided to hang my stocking in July.
I was surprised and very disappointed on that mid-summer morning when I found my stocking filled with corn cobs, corn husks and a willow limb switch with a note that read "BAD BOY!"
That's when I learned there is no Santa Claus or July Christmas, but the good news is it is our Savior's Birthday!
This page is maintained by Dr. Wood's son, Harold W. Wood, Jr., of
Visalia, California.
My E-mail address is: harold@planetaryexploration.net
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Last update: May 25, 1997