Lovely, Sabrina - though we sang that song at Town School for Boys, which ruined it for me. 😊
Our Christmas tradition when the kids were young was that the presents under the tree were from us and their grandparents and whoever, but the stockings hanging off the mantelpiece remained empty until, after the kids had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, Santa came and filled them with trinkets and chocolate. Every Christmas morning was a miracle! One year, when Lizzie was old enough that some classmates were telling her that Santa didn’t exist, but young enough to still want to believe, we put the kids to bed and retreated to our bedroom to fill their stockings... and suddenly there was Lizzie, who couldn’t get to sleep, at the door. She saw what we were doing and her eyes widened as she realized the awful truth.
I was horrified, but came up with a plan: Heather would take her back to her room and put her to bed again, while I turned on the shower (so if Lizzie, or Tito or Thea, reappeared Heather could tell them I was in the shower). Then I got out our stepladder, climbed onto the metal roof of our one-story house, walked down to the kids’ end of the house, and began stomping around and loudly bellowing, “Ho ho ho!”
My plan worked to perfection (aided by our confused old dog Phoebe, who started barking loudly when she heard something on the roof.) Unfortunately, it was sleeting that night, so the kids also heard Santa yell some bad words while trying not to slide off the roof. But it was all worth it the next morning, when Lizzie and her siblings told us in wonderment that they’d actually heard Santa Claus last night. A child’s belief saved for one more year!
I love this story Martin! Thanks so much for sharing it! That was very ingenious of you to come up with that plan (and brave to go out in the wet weather too)
So sorry Town school wrecked the song for you....🙁
Wow SUCH a lovely description of holiday celebrations Sabrina, and all...I love these! And blasts from the past indeed - Gumps was my mother’s favorite store and I remember spending many an hour there waiting for my parents to look at furniture! Union Square, Magnin’s, Blums (with the toffee sundaes!!), the sidewalk flower stalls that smelled so wonderful, and driving home to Marin in the dark and oohing and ahhing over the beautiful trees in the front windows of the houses lining the Marina, and the mammoth gold Buddha in one of the windows every year! Completely magical....
I’m now rotating favorite holiday music CDs and Spotify playlists of holiday music while getting cards ready and making my favorite holiday cut out cookie dough recipe to chill. Happily that recipe (and the collection of cut out shapes) adapts easily to both Hanukkah and Christmas so that I have lots of fun making batches of both! Blue sprinkles for the Hanukkah batches, red and green for the Christmas ones. With twinkle lights, engaging advent calendars (thank you Sabrina for introducing Jacquie Lawson and her amazing artists to me years ago!) and Hanukkah candles to light, the winter dark is lit up!
Growing up in California I yearned for the snowy scenes of “traditional” Christmases, and think that that was a big contributor to my pull towards living in the northeast part of the US, and to this day absolutely love the changing seasons and the snowy winters in upstate New York.
We also looked for the Buddha as we slowly drove along the Marina. I remember Gumps too but fortunately it did not form part of our Christmas outing. Phew!
It's funny to see how we all went to Blums enjoyed the toffee sundaes. And we didn't even know each other then!
Happy Hanukkah to you and yours. I'm sure the cookies, with blue, green, and red sparkles, will be scrumpcious.
I had forgotten about the Buddha! Of course! And I love that you value your snowy winters in upstate New York, and so often must get the storybook version of Winter holidays. Thanks for sharing all your early memories, and the traditions that continue now. I remember baking cookies with you when we were young, and love to know that it continues to this day. Very bright winter lights to you too!
I loved this piece. I hope our children have the same fond memories of Christmas traditions but somehow with all the family and location changes it's harder for those traditions to stick. That makes me a little sad given the wonderful memories Christmas conjures up for me.
So much of what you recounted is familiar. All dressed up, my mother would take my siblings and me to the city and meet my godmother and her children for lunch at Blums. It was the ONLY time my mother allowed me to have a toffee sunday without anything nourishing or substantial beforehand. We'd see a play, Santa Claus, and the tree at the City of Paris. Every year, it was a very special day.
In our household, my mother put on a record of Handel's Messiah and turned up the volume of the phonograph. Every year in my adult life, we go to a live performance. For the past two Christmases now that my mother is not around, I had a huge knot in my throat and tears in my eyes as the orchestra started up. Sadness and joy overwhelmed me.
Here in Madrid, the streets are festooned with lights and I love walking down the avenues to enjoy the gaiety. Then I get to go home and leave the masses of people behind to enjoy our Christmas tree and decorations.
Right now I'm going to ask Alexa to play the Messiah.
Andrea, you’ve brought back even more Christmas memories, as my husband and I spent our earliest years in Madrid. I bought my first red ornaments to decorate our tree from El Corte Inglés, and I still use them, 40 years later. As a Southern California girl, I loved bundling up and walking Serrano avenue to enjoy the lights and store windows!
Patricia, thanks for your delightful comment. Corte Ingles is still going strong (in fact, I just arrived home from a little visit there) and each store is decorated festively. I'm sure Serrano is now even more magnficent with Christmas lights than when you were here. And it was undoubtedly lovely then. I'm going to walk down that street at night later this week. It makes me feel happy and festive.
What were you and your husband doing in Madrid forty years ago?
He was there with Bechtel, building a nuclear power plant (joint venture Initec SA) and I was a trailing spouse. We were there four wonderful years, made good friends and had our son there. Lived on Serrano, next door to José Luis, where I’d go for my breakfast, a cafe con leche and tostada or tortilla. Gosh I miss that!
Andrea and Patti- I'm so glad you've both had a chance to meet here! You two also have a little Pasadena in common too, as I think your mother grew up there, Andrea, and Patti did too? I may have this wrong, but anyway, I think there are some links. Not that Madrid isn't a lovely enough link!
Yes! I was going to ask about the Southern California roots but thought that might be too nosy. My mother grew up in Altadena and Pasadena. My grandparents lived at 410 South Grand where we'd spend wonderful summer vacations. I still love Pasadena.
Thanks for sharing all your memories and thoughts, Andrea. I love your tradition of going to see a live performance of the Messiah each year to carry on that musical memory, but in a way that works so well for you now. That's the best way to keep traditions alive: letting them flex and flow as the years and situations change. I know what music I'll be playing the rest of this morning! Thanks ❤️
Lovely trip down Memory Lane. City of Paris Christmas tree, shopping for our Christmas dresses at I. Magnin’s (our grandmother wanted to make sure we three little girls were “presentable” at the family’s Christmas Eve party!), lunch at Blum’s, and in the evening we drove along the Marina to check out all the decorated trees in the bay windows. We always looked for the giant Buddha, lit up and sitting benevolently in one bay window -- do you remember him?
I am so glad you remembered the Buddha! I had forgotten him, but he really was what we looked for, wasn't he? Thanks for sharing your memories-it's amazing that we all did so many of the same things, back in those days.
I took your advice and turned on Christmas Spotify while I wrote Christmas cards. It was nice and the Terrier went to sleep on his bed, snoring as I jotted quick messages to friends.
It was lovely to have a revived memory of taking our own children to see the lights and windows of Melbourne CBD back in the day and I must ask them if they remember. These days, we live far from city lights and so Christmas is more looking up at the stars and moon at night and (in my grandson's case) looking for a reindeer streak across the sky.
I've also been cooking today, to Christmas music - the usual Christmas foods - and I have to say that too was a blast from the past as I remember sharing the time with my mum who made Christmas taste so wonderful.
It's crazy for us to have a hot Christmas dinner as invariably its a warm summer day, although many keep the tradition. But this year we're making a break and opting to cook everything on BBQ's (mostly turkey burgers and boned -out turkey and chicken rolls) and have lots of salads with all the fresh summer produce - it makes more sense.
I just look forward to Boxing Day when I can dive off the deep end into summer! Bring it on!
I have learned so much from you about the appropriateness of various traditions and how Northern hemisphere-centric we are. Thank you for sharing your warm summer Christmas celebration. And I LOVE your version of Boxing day!
Growing up in Northern California we had chilly weather in winter, but certainly not snow, and I always felt a bit cheated and left out relative to all the books and movie scenes depicting snowy wonderlands. Perhaps that is another reason I like the big city lights and baubles that seem closer to the fantasy of Christmas.
At any rate, I am so glad you put the music on, and made some of the Christmas foods that conjure up Christmas for you. And I love the snores of your terrier. Perfect!
Ah, London at Christmas! I had the opportunity to visit while Ali lived in the UK. Ali, Matt, Justine and I spent two days there walking (and walking), dodging cloudbursts but loving the Christmas lights and decorations. I’m not familiar with Liberty and wish we could have visited! Love Marylebone village too. Ali and I have stayed there twice, as a huge celebration.
That was also the Christmas I caught the stomach flu on the 23rd, spent the evening in bed and missed a Michelin starred dinner just outside of Bristol that Matt had booked for the four of us!
I look back fondly on my time in SF with my mom and Ali. Mom would fly up and treat us to a night at the St Francis and take us Christmas shopping. She always said how tiring it was, as Ali could never make up her mind what she liked! But being together in the bustle of Christmas, in a city that sparkled and dressed to impress, will remain one of my fondest memories.
What fun memories (except the being sick on Christmas part)-thanks so much for sharing them! I like how you put that: "city that sparkled and dressed to impress". That is exactly what I have enjoyed about both San Francisco and London-they really like to impress! I will miss carolling with you this year-I hope one year to make it back at just the right time to join the fun! Merry Christmas to you too!
Lovely, Sabrina - though we sang that song at Town School for Boys, which ruined it for me. 😊
Our Christmas tradition when the kids were young was that the presents under the tree were from us and their grandparents and whoever, but the stockings hanging off the mantelpiece remained empty until, after the kids had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, Santa came and filled them with trinkets and chocolate. Every Christmas morning was a miracle! One year, when Lizzie was old enough that some classmates were telling her that Santa didn’t exist, but young enough to still want to believe, we put the kids to bed and retreated to our bedroom to fill their stockings... and suddenly there was Lizzie, who couldn’t get to sleep, at the door. She saw what we were doing and her eyes widened as she realized the awful truth.
I was horrified, but came up with a plan: Heather would take her back to her room and put her to bed again, while I turned on the shower (so if Lizzie, or Tito or Thea, reappeared Heather could tell them I was in the shower). Then I got out our stepladder, climbed onto the metal roof of our one-story house, walked down to the kids’ end of the house, and began stomping around and loudly bellowing, “Ho ho ho!”
My plan worked to perfection (aided by our confused old dog Phoebe, who started barking loudly when she heard something on the roof.) Unfortunately, it was sleeting that night, so the kids also heard Santa yell some bad words while trying not to slide off the roof. But it was all worth it the next morning, when Lizzie and her siblings told us in wonderment that they’d actually heard Santa Claus last night. A child’s belief saved for one more year!
Happy holidays to all!
I love this story Martin! Thanks so much for sharing it! That was very ingenious of you to come up with that plan (and brave to go out in the wet weather too)
So sorry Town school wrecked the song for you....🙁
And very happy holidays to you and all of yours!
Wow SUCH a lovely description of holiday celebrations Sabrina, and all...I love these! And blasts from the past indeed - Gumps was my mother’s favorite store and I remember spending many an hour there waiting for my parents to look at furniture! Union Square, Magnin’s, Blums (with the toffee sundaes!!), the sidewalk flower stalls that smelled so wonderful, and driving home to Marin in the dark and oohing and ahhing over the beautiful trees in the front windows of the houses lining the Marina, and the mammoth gold Buddha in one of the windows every year! Completely magical....
I’m now rotating favorite holiday music CDs and Spotify playlists of holiday music while getting cards ready and making my favorite holiday cut out cookie dough recipe to chill. Happily that recipe (and the collection of cut out shapes) adapts easily to both Hanukkah and Christmas so that I have lots of fun making batches of both! Blue sprinkles for the Hanukkah batches, red and green for the Christmas ones. With twinkle lights, engaging advent calendars (thank you Sabrina for introducing Jacquie Lawson and her amazing artists to me years ago!) and Hanukkah candles to light, the winter dark is lit up!
Growing up in California I yearned for the snowy scenes of “traditional” Christmases, and think that that was a big contributor to my pull towards living in the northeast part of the US, and to this day absolutely love the changing seasons and the snowy winters in upstate New York.
Happy lights and winter holidays to everyone!
We also looked for the Buddha as we slowly drove along the Marina. I remember Gumps too but fortunately it did not form part of our Christmas outing. Phew!
It's funny to see how we all went to Blums enjoyed the toffee sundaes. And we didn't even know each other then!
Happy Hanukkah to you and yours. I'm sure the cookies, with blue, green, and red sparkles, will be scrumpcious.
I had forgotten about the Buddha! Of course! And I love that you value your snowy winters in upstate New York, and so often must get the storybook version of Winter holidays. Thanks for sharing all your early memories, and the traditions that continue now. I remember baking cookies with you when we were young, and love to know that it continues to this day. Very bright winter lights to you too!
I loved this piece. I hope our children have the same fond memories of Christmas traditions but somehow with all the family and location changes it's harder for those traditions to stick. That makes me a little sad given the wonderful memories Christmas conjures up for me.
So much of what you recounted is familiar. All dressed up, my mother would take my siblings and me to the city and meet my godmother and her children for lunch at Blums. It was the ONLY time my mother allowed me to have a toffee sunday without anything nourishing or substantial beforehand. We'd see a play, Santa Claus, and the tree at the City of Paris. Every year, it was a very special day.
In our household, my mother put on a record of Handel's Messiah and turned up the volume of the phonograph. Every year in my adult life, we go to a live performance. For the past two Christmases now that my mother is not around, I had a huge knot in my throat and tears in my eyes as the orchestra started up. Sadness and joy overwhelmed me.
Here in Madrid, the streets are festooned with lights and I love walking down the avenues to enjoy the gaiety. Then I get to go home and leave the masses of people behind to enjoy our Christmas tree and decorations.
Right now I'm going to ask Alexa to play the Messiah.
Andrea, you’ve brought back even more Christmas memories, as my husband and I spent our earliest years in Madrid. I bought my first red ornaments to decorate our tree from El Corte Inglés, and I still use them, 40 years later. As a Southern California girl, I loved bundling up and walking Serrano avenue to enjoy the lights and store windows!
Patricia, thanks for your delightful comment. Corte Ingles is still going strong (in fact, I just arrived home from a little visit there) and each store is decorated festively. I'm sure Serrano is now even more magnficent with Christmas lights than when you were here. And it was undoubtedly lovely then. I'm going to walk down that street at night later this week. It makes me feel happy and festive.
What were you and your husband doing in Madrid forty years ago?
He was there with Bechtel, building a nuclear power plant (joint venture Initec SA) and I was a trailing spouse. We were there four wonderful years, made good friends and had our son there. Lived on Serrano, next door to José Luis, where I’d go for my breakfast, a cafe con leche and tostada or tortilla. Gosh I miss that!
Andrea and Patti- I'm so glad you've both had a chance to meet here! You two also have a little Pasadena in common too, as I think your mother grew up there, Andrea, and Patti did too? I may have this wrong, but anyway, I think there are some links. Not that Madrid isn't a lovely enough link!
Yes! I was going to ask about the Southern California roots but thought that might be too nosy. My mother grew up in Altadena and Pasadena. My grandparents lived at 410 South Grand where we'd spend wonderful summer vacations. I still love Pasadena.
It was actually my dad, in South Pasadena on Atlas St.
That sounds lovely and a great experience for all. Hope you can come back sometime.
Thanks for sharing all your memories and thoughts, Andrea. I love your tradition of going to see a live performance of the Messiah each year to carry on that musical memory, but in a way that works so well for you now. That's the best way to keep traditions alive: letting them flex and flow as the years and situations change. I know what music I'll be playing the rest of this morning! Thanks ❤️
Lovely trip down Memory Lane. City of Paris Christmas tree, shopping for our Christmas dresses at I. Magnin’s (our grandmother wanted to make sure we three little girls were “presentable” at the family’s Christmas Eve party!), lunch at Blum’s, and in the evening we drove along the Marina to check out all the decorated trees in the bay windows. We always looked for the giant Buddha, lit up and sitting benevolently in one bay window -- do you remember him?
I am so glad you remembered the Buddha! I had forgotten him, but he really was what we looked for, wasn't he? Thanks for sharing your memories-it's amazing that we all did so many of the same things, back in those days.
I took your advice and turned on Christmas Spotify while I wrote Christmas cards. It was nice and the Terrier went to sleep on his bed, snoring as I jotted quick messages to friends.
It was lovely to have a revived memory of taking our own children to see the lights and windows of Melbourne CBD back in the day and I must ask them if they remember. These days, we live far from city lights and so Christmas is more looking up at the stars and moon at night and (in my grandson's case) looking for a reindeer streak across the sky.
I've also been cooking today, to Christmas music - the usual Christmas foods - and I have to say that too was a blast from the past as I remember sharing the time with my mum who made Christmas taste so wonderful.
It's crazy for us to have a hot Christmas dinner as invariably its a warm summer day, although many keep the tradition. But this year we're making a break and opting to cook everything on BBQ's (mostly turkey burgers and boned -out turkey and chicken rolls) and have lots of salads with all the fresh summer produce - it makes more sense.
I just look forward to Boxing Day when I can dive off the deep end into summer! Bring it on!
I have learned so much from you about the appropriateness of various traditions and how Northern hemisphere-centric we are. Thank you for sharing your warm summer Christmas celebration. And I LOVE your version of Boxing day!
Growing up in Northern California we had chilly weather in winter, but certainly not snow, and I always felt a bit cheated and left out relative to all the books and movie scenes depicting snowy wonderlands. Perhaps that is another reason I like the big city lights and baubles that seem closer to the fantasy of Christmas.
At any rate, I am so glad you put the music on, and made some of the Christmas foods that conjure up Christmas for you. And I love the snores of your terrier. Perfect!
Happy festive days to you Prue!
Such a lovely festive-feeling post, Sabrina! Thank you. 🎄
Ah, London at Christmas! I had the opportunity to visit while Ali lived in the UK. Ali, Matt, Justine and I spent two days there walking (and walking), dodging cloudbursts but loving the Christmas lights and decorations. I’m not familiar with Liberty and wish we could have visited! Love Marylebone village too. Ali and I have stayed there twice, as a huge celebration.
That was also the Christmas I caught the stomach flu on the 23rd, spent the evening in bed and missed a Michelin starred dinner just outside of Bristol that Matt had booked for the four of us!
I look back fondly on my time in SF with my mom and Ali. Mom would fly up and treat us to a night at the St Francis and take us Christmas shopping. She always said how tiring it was, as Ali could never make up her mind what she liked! But being together in the bustle of Christmas, in a city that sparkled and dressed to impress, will remain one of my fondest memories.
Merry Christmas Sabrina!
What fun memories (except the being sick on Christmas part)-thanks so much for sharing them! I like how you put that: "city that sparkled and dressed to impress". That is exactly what I have enjoyed about both San Francisco and London-they really like to impress! I will miss carolling with you this year-I hope one year to make it back at just the right time to join the fun! Merry Christmas to you too!