Christmas Caroling memories

Growing up in  Parchment,MI  in the late 1960's, early '70's, I remember that a large group of us neighborhood kids used to get together and go around to houses in the neighborhood and go Christmas caroling.

I'm not talking about a local church organizing the singing, I'm talking just a bunch of kids from the neighborhood would get together and go around singing. We all went to different churches, and, at least in my own case,lol....weren't necessarily in the choirs at our churches or schools. We just liked singing Christmas carols, I guess?

I can't remember who started it, why we started, or how many years we did it...but I do know that my little sister (10 years younger) says she still remembers going with us. I remember that there was always a lady at one house who would insist that we have divinity candy when we were done singing, which I despised then and still do to this day, but always took a piece to be polite.

Thought about that today, so went on a YouTube search for some of the songs we used to sing....a capella, of course, since that's how we used to sing:) bundled up against the cold, and I don't remember us having sheet music to read, either, we just sang the Christmas carols by heart, because we all knew them.

So, here's a short set of Christmas carols for you to enjoy:)

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Joy to the World

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Silent Night

and ending with, always my favorite
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

(and a pic of two of my siblings on the back porch of our house'back in the day')

(Update: my sis mentioned in the comments the Christmas play we did, so I'm adding the picture for that,too)

we made our own costumes, and did a version of the Christmas story at a local nursing home, I believe.

Uncle Ken's retirement party

Went to  Ken's surprise retirement dinner last night, it was a lovely night of family and friends all joining together.
It would be nice to see pictures, wouldn't it?
However, since the batteries in the camera were 'exhausted' before Ken ever arrived,
and since the batteries I had brought just in case that happened Didn't Work,either!
I'm left sharing a nice picture of the table, at the place where we ate

(actually, Kyle and April took some pics with their cell phones, after my camera batteries tanked....I'm just...Ahem!....waiting for them to Send them to me,hint!)

Kevin and Brian both said some very nice things about, and to, their Dad.
One of the things they both mentioned was how much their Dad's example of how to Be a father, and a Christian, had affected Them.

And it occurred to me, sitting there later when we were laughing at old family favorites "one hen, two ducks.." and "in the little red schoolhouse"...etc.

That it went back to Grandad

and all the stories I had heard about how 'silly' he could be, and yet also all of his children have always talked about what a good father, and Christian, he was....and so many of the qualities that the 'boys' were mentioning about their father, were passed down from Grandad.

And that made me wonder what Grandad's father had been like? because, I'll be honest,when I look at This picture I have of my great-grandparents? the word 'goofy and silly' doesn't spring to mind, when you look at my great-grandfather,lol.

and yet.....he shaped what Grandad became, just as Grandad shaped the man Ken became, the man we were helping to celebrate welcoming the next phase of his life last evening :)

and so, come to think of it...it's kind of cool, to have that picture of the long table stretching out....kind of an analogy of the links to our past, and our future, all sitting together at that table last night.

Enjoy your retirement,Ken!

Decorating finished:)

yes, we even decorated the dogs,lol....as you can see, they were less than thrilled.

starting to get the Christmas spirit!!:)

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas:)

While we're decorating today, wanted to share one of my favorite Christmas songs.....

Currently reading.......

Currently reading.......Midnight in Chattanooga: The game, the team and the dream behind the rise of JMU football by James Irwin

Also, went to the library today looking for:

13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson & James Kwak

(because my brother recommends it)....but, they didn't have that one  yet, the recession is even hitting the new book purchases by the libraries,sigh.

Changed my mind,lol.......

I know I said I wasn't going to post any longer on my family blog, but I changed my mind today.

There are some days that are just too ridiculous to condense into a status update on Facebook,lol, and I  wanted to share the absurdity:)

Tony and I got up this morning to go visit daughter April at her college, and decided to stop and eat at McDonald's for breakfast before we left town.  We were driving two cars.....April's car,because Dustin had been using it while he was home on leave

(he left Weds....bye,Dustin,we'll miss you!)

and my car.  We went into Micky D's, which was extremely busy, and I ordered hot cakes, since we were going to eat there.  Thought that they automatically put syrup on the tray when you got hotcakes? but found out I was wrong....fought my way back thru the crowd to catch someone's eye and ask for it....went back to where the drinks,napkins,etc are and discovered that apparently the plastic fork thievery has become such an issue for McDonald's that they daren't put them out where they are easily accessible? (or possibly it's a cost cutting measure ? how much could a box of plastic forks cost,really?)

Got my fork, and went back to the table,took one bite of my hotcakes......and they were stone cold.

This.....is when I started to get a bad feeling about the day.

After getting hotcakes that were actually....hot, we finished eating and walked out to the parking lot.Tony looked at my back tire on my car and said "hmmmm".....which ended up meaning "I just noticed a wire sticking out of your tire".

My bad feeling got worse.

After checking out two tire places and deciding that we wouldn't fool around getting the tire taken care of today, we came back home to switch to taking the truck and April's car on our trip. When we pulled into the driveway, Tony said ' I just noticed April's heater isn't working.'  So, we decided we weren't going to leave her a car with something wrong with it.......we changed our plans to, let's just drive down and visit like we were going to, and we'll take her car down after Tony has a chance to fix it.

I walk into the house to heat up my coffee before we take off, and I walked into......Fluff World!!!! fluff, and foam, spread All Over the Living Room floor......fluff and foam that came from the loveseat, apparently Brownie had decided while we were gone to show Riggo just how much fun it is, to pull foam out of the cushion and fluff out of the side of the loveseat, and then spread it all over the room and play with it.

I began to wonder if possibly God was trying to send us a message not to go today?

Being unsure if that was the message,lol, and  knowing April wanted us to visit, and we also wanted to go see her, we hit the road....by this point,laughing because the day just kept getting more and more ridiculous. Tony made the comment "what Else could possibly happen today?"

You should Never, Never say that!

About an hour down the road, the police car in the median turns on it's flashing lights right as we are going by......me to Tony "is that for us,do you think?"

Tony "don't know"long pause......"yes, it's for us."

So, when the officer walks up, we are both sitting there laughing our heads off. NOW, we knew what else could happen today!!
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We did after that make it to visit April, and had a nice visit, and made it home without anything else happening......

that was our day......how was yours? :)

Last post on my family blog........

Since my blogging here has greatly diminished, and my family is connected with each other now on Facebook, I've decided it's time to say good-bye to my family blog. 

I'll still be blogging over at my troop support blog

Mail Call! Supporting the Troops

Stop by sometime over there and say hello! :)