My dad always put the lights on our Christmas tree. I can still see him trying to untangle the mass of twisted cords and colored lights. He would spread the strands out on the linoleum floor of our living room and admonish us kids repeatedly, "Don't step on the lights!" ... "Don't step on the lights!" I always wondered why he hadn't put those lights away more carefully the year before so they wouldn't be so tangled. This thought comes back to me most clearly every year now when I play the 'untangling game'. Those darned strands have a way of intertwining despite the care taken in putting them away the previous year!
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I remember trying and trying and trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve...knowing that morning would come sooner if I could only get to sleep; yet, finding it impossible to get my body to cooperate.
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Grandma Kemp's cookies! Always made with such infinite care. Santa's, Christmas trees, stars, camels, bells, gingerbread men...covered with red, green, white and yellow icing (made from scratch, of course!) and decorated with tiny silver candy balls, red or green sugar crystals, raisins and chocolate chips. And were they yummy!
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I fondly remember last minute shopping trips with my dad. His boss always gave them a cash bonus on Christmas Eve and we would make that last trip to the Corydon Fair Store that evening. Dad always spent more than he should on extra gifts for everyone for fear someone would be disappointed come Christmas morning. We all knew how much he loved us and, that if money were no object, the world would have been ours. Still....I always felt like the luckiest girl in the world come Christmas morning.
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I remember the great excitement and anticipation I felt when Bill and I lived in Evansville and would prepare to "come home" for Christmas.
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Christmas candy...chocolate covered creams, orange slices, all flavors of hard candy, coconut bon-bons, caramels, horehound, peppermint sticks...ummm! ummm! Candy was another purchase we usually made on that last minute Christmas Eve shopping trip. One year on Christmas afternoon ALL of the candy came up missing. We searched everywhere....through the kitchen, living room, all the torn-off ribbons and wrappings...no candy! Then my mother had a heart-thumping thought..."I didn't get the candy bags mixed in with all the paper trash I took out to burn, did I?" Well, lo and behold, a trip through the back yard to the pit where we burned our trash revealed our candy......melted into a mound of 'candy ash.' Woe! Oh, woe! We can laugh about it now, but then it was crying time for sure.
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