Christmas Memories

Well Christmas is well on its way and the 1st of  December here saw the lighting of the town Christmas tree, which happens to be right outside my front door...I refuse to put another up in the building as I already have the best one in town.

It was a bit of a task this year getting ready for the tree as after 3 major blizzards the town had mega snow and over those few weeks as the roads were cleared any empty spot around town became the receiving ground for the snow mountains.

The church square (my front garden) became the repository for the snow removed from the main road...initially there was hope that we would have some warmer days and the snow would have melted away by the 1st December but alas this was not the case and in the end 2 earth movers took a day to clear the spot...

in readiness for the tree.

In Australia as a child, I grew up with Christmas decor at a minimum, in my early years until I was about 12 we celebrated every Christmas at my grandmothers house and I cannot recall one Christmas decoration...except maybe a wreath on the front door...no Christmas tree, no lights (I need to check with my sisters if their memories of this time are similar to mine).  There were only a few christmassy rituals as I recall, on Christmas eve a pillowcase was tied to the end of our beds (in lieu of the Christmas stocking) for Santa to fill and we would leave a bottle of beer and biscuits  for him to eat and drink, the beer was always consumed but year after year the biscuits remained untouched. The only other tradition I remember was that we always had a hot lunch (even if it was 38°c) with a Christmas pudding which had threepences/sixpences hidden inside and the table set with Christmas bonbons (crackers).  After lunch us children were usually sent off to the beach with our new beach bags and towels which we seemed to get every year. We usually returned burned and blistered as sun protection was not on anyones radar back then.

The lighting of the Christmas tree celebrations in front of Gamla Pósthúsið

A few of the 13 Santas (Yule Lads) popped in for a quick visit.

Back in the 60's in Australia, Christmas was a fairly low key affair all round, at least in the country town were we were, I suppose our world view was fairly narrow then, with no television or internet...who knows maybe the next town had mega celebrations, I however, do not remember any other folks doing anything more christmassy than us.  Houses decorated with lights in Australia I think is a fairly recent phenomenon, possibly only since the onslaught of the internet.  When my children were young I did try and make Christmas a good memory for them and in the lead up together we created handmade decorations and always had a real tree of some description...even if it was a Gum tree branch.  I did also honour my Christmas memories and my children had the pillowcases at the end of the bed and no matter the weather I always opted for a hot Christmas lunch...I could never get into a cold meal...it never felt like christmas to me.   

Christmas here is pretty over the top, low key does not exist.  So for the second time in my life I have put lights in the windows (first time was last year) and I will put up a few Christmassy touches around the apartment, I have made my Christmas pudding and will do a bit more Christmas baking next week in preparation for the arrival of my sisters who will be here to celebrate a white Christmas and to see the New Year in.

Since moving into the old post house I have pretty much a birds eye view of the coming and goings around the town but the tables are now turned...a web cam was put up in the square to capture the festivities and Gamla Pósthúsið is in full view (this possibly will disappear at some stage but it is still there as I write this post).

 My sister in Australia captured a couple of screen shots of me walking my dog Perla.

Notice how dark it is for 10.30 in the morning, currently sunrise is around 11.20am and sunset around 3pm, over the Christmas and New Year holidays will be the shortest days of the season...so yay for all the Christmas lights around town.