Christmas Week 2010/Christmas Pasts Remembered

I will save any political rants for this week to my Facebook Page...since it's Christmas I will keep politics away from here for a few days...as hard as that is with what is happening in Washington, as the "Lame Duck" Congress tries to push it's Republic Destroying Agenda through in the dying days of 2010....but there I go again.

Patricia and I headed down I-75 to Troy on Saturday night, our 34th Wedding Anniversary.  A night out at the closest "Outback" Steak House to us....a good meal and time, but we were ready to crash after we ate, and thus didn't go to the movie as we had originally planned...ain't growing old great?  {Hell no it's not, and don't let anybody tell you different}  So we now plan on seeing the latest C.W. Lewis "Narnia" installment on Wednesday evening.

It appears that we are guaranteed a "White Christmas" as we are expecting an inch or 2 overnight, with maybe some freezing rain in the morning tomorrow...then there is a good chance of heavier snow for Christmas Eve and Day....but regardless, no temperatures expected to rise above freezing, so our ground will remain covered for the time being.

Christmas Past______

I guess if I sat here I could probably reach back in my memory banks and remember most Christmas days of my past...but I would have to strain the brain to be sure....some however come to mind quickly.  I remember the year 1955, it was our second year in Florida, and Grandma Houseworth was with us that year.  1959, our friends, the Foust family, came up from Ohio, and we celebrated Christmas with them.  In 1968 I came home from Dover for my first Air Force Christmas....in 1969, I spent packing, one of the few Security Police guys from the 14th SPS to still be at Nha Trang, 2 days later I was flying south to Saigon to spend the next 6 months at Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

Of course in 1972, dad died of a heart attack suddenly Christmas Eve morning, so I spend Christmas day flying back to Ohio from upstate New York...the next few days were spent at the funeral home in Van Wert.  Patricia and I spent the Saturday before Christmas 1976 getting married in Wisconsin, like this year, Christmas and our Anniversary were both on a Saturday that year 34 seasons ago.  In 1981 we had just welcomed our first son, and the first Houseworth boy in our immediate family, Sam, home, he was born on December 17th..  I remember all those bitter, cold, Christmases at the farm on Coldwater Creek Road of the early and mid 1980s....they were brutal cold, but the kids were young, and we enjoyed them, despite the weather.

The last dozen or so years we have spent Christmas Eve at sister Marty's place feasting....and Christmas Day watching Anissa enjoy opening her gifts...even at 31, with her "special" problems, it's like having a young kid at home...and she enjoys just opening the gifts as much as anything.  This year both boys will be home, as well as Hal's fiancee, Lisa...by next Christmas, she will be a full member of the Houseworth family.  Mom and Mike it appears will hold off the trip to Florida until after the first week in January, so it looks like all the family will be here, although not sure about youngest sister Kelly and Denmark Mike, her husband....the next couple of days will decide that.

Meanwhile I will spend the next few blog posts trying to dig up memories and photos from those Christmas Pasts.

back later>>>>

Photos-top left...the first Christmas Tree Ornament featuring all 3 kids....left to right, Hal, Anissa, and Sam, from the year 1984.  Me in 1979 with some kind of alcohol drink in one hand and Anissa's "Raggedy Ann" in the other, probably pretty sheet faced to be caught posing for this....Patricia on our Wedding Day in 1976, in her parents living room in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, December 18th....and bottom, Me, Marty, and Mike, looking "thrilled" and half awake on Christmas morning 1955 in our humble abode along Highway 41 in South Venice, Florida.