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Monday, December 24, 2007

Waiting for Santa?

Max is ready and waiting...
Nick is asleep in his old room, and the bed in Jessi's old room is made up and waiting for her to arrive when she gets off work. Gifts are wrapped (finally) and stockings are stuffed. There will be fresh poppyseed bread for breakfast in the morning.

Happy Christmas everyone - this Santa is heading for bed!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

He's coming to town...

Santa, that is!!
In 1969 my mother made Santa mugs for each of us, and it became a tradition to drink hot chocolate from those mugs on Christmas morning. Each mug has our name and "1969" on the bottom.


We each have our mugs now and I think they are on display at each of our homes during the holiday season. I also have Mom's and Arlan's mugs.
You know what they say about when you have 3 of something, that is a collection? Well, these three mugs sparked a definite collection for me. Over the past several years, every time I found a Santa mug at a garage sale or at the thrift store, I'd pick it up.
Then along came ebay and, well, we all know what ebay does to a person. I now have many Santa mugs, most vintage, some newer. I like to display the smaller ones on the glass shelves I have for vintage family photos. The larger ones are on a small dresser near the kitchen.
Along with the smaller cups, I have some Santa candleholders and salt & peppper shakers, and a small boot. More things to turn into a collection? I think so.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

More "vintage" Christmas


This is Christmas 1971 - Randy got his Big Wheels bike and Alan got his electric football game. I think Arlan got his Erector set that year. In looking closely at the photo, I think Tonita and I got dolls that we put on our beds for decoration. Mine was named Stacy, and I think I still have her somewhere... I know Tonita still has hers.
I love these photos since they show what a free-for-all it was when we opened our gifts. This must have been the first year that Santa wrapped our gifts. In previous years, they were arranged unwrapped under the tree (which always stayed lit all night from Christmas Eve til Christmas morning). I don't know why Mom decided to wrap them, but I remember her telling us that was going to happen (could it be the couple of years before when we kids got up at like, 3 a.m. and played Hot Wheels with the racing track that was set up?).
I remember that Randy rode that Big Wheel to death - we were all so excited that he got one since they were just new to the toy market at that time.




If you take a look at the tree, you'll see the ornaments made from gluing circles of wrapping paper together to form a sphere. I always enjoyed making those.
I see the tree in these photos and the ones from 1970 is the artificial one that Mom bought at Hested's. She paid $15 for it and was so worried that Dad would be mad about how much it was, but was convinced it would save them money since they wouldn't have to purchase a tree every year. Dad wasn't mad, and that tree was used for a few decades. Mom gave it to me when Greg and I first got married, and we used it until the kids were old enough to enjoy going out and picking a fresh one to cut down, so I suppose that artificial one was close to 25 years old by the time I donated it to the resale shop.
You can also see Dad is fresh out of bed. Christmas was the one day of the year that no matter how early we got up and woke up our parents, they got right up and joined us in the living room. No fussing, no sending us back to bed. And Christmas day started early in the Regier household! :o)






Friday, December 14, 2007

Wedding Bells

Mr. & Mrs. Caleb Stovall

It's official. Caleb and Bethany got married this afternoon. He was a little giddy when I talked to him - said he can't stop smiling.

Tonita, Daniel, Abbie, and Bethany's parents and brother were all in attendance. They got married in an historic courthouse in Washington Historic State Park in Washington, AR. Bethany's father officiated.

Please join me in wishing them the happiest, longest life together by posting a comment. I'll pass them on to the happy couple.

Christmas morning, 1970

Here it is - the famous (infamous) mini-bike we got from "Santa". (Pay no attention to the high-water plaid pants [OMG!] or the plaid ponchos - more about those in a minute...) The mini-bike that launched the boys' racing careers. The mini-bike that taught me how to drive a clutch before I knew how to drive. (To this day, I prefer a manual transmission.)

I learned to ride that mini-bike in about a minute, and LOVED it. We used to load it up on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and take it out to Hurbut's where they had a dirt track right next to the highway. I remember loving the speed and the control I had over the bike - then Dad jumped in front of me and yelled to "SLOW DOWN!!". Years later I found out he only did this because Mom was having a panic attack about how fast I was going. Turns out, he wanted me to race, but Mom said NO.

For all you safety buffs out there, yes, we wore a helmet. A very good quality helmet. As far as I remember, none of us got hurt on that motorcycle. (Later Dad traded it in for a little 4-wheeler go-cart type of thing, and Tonita ran over Arlan with that. And Alan and Randy would have their share of injuries from racing. And surgeries. Alan would have surgeries. But no one got hurt on the mini-bike.)

Anyway, back to Christmas morning. Us kids (is that even grammatically correct?) would always get up about 4 a.m. to see what Santa left us since our big gifts were never wrapped. I think I'd just fallen asleep when the boys were in our room to wake up Tonita and me. We all went out to the living room and were stunned. Then Randy went in to Mom and Dad's room and said, "Daddy! Santa brought you a new motorcycle!". :o) I'm sure to him, that bike looked huge.

Now for those plaid pixie-hat ponchos. I don't know why. Yes, we wore them to school. No, they were not warm. Were they the fashion for 1970? Again, I don't know. Obviously, plaid was "in" (those pants, ugh). I'd love to hear if you had plaid. Please share my pain.


More vintage Christmas next week!



Thursday, December 13, 2007

Some vintage Christmas

This photo is from Christmas 1970. I would have been 9, Tonita, 8, Alan, 6, Arlan, 5, and Randy, 4. This was taken on Christmas Eve after church. See how sleepy Randy looks? I remember I had a hard time getting to sleep that night, and heard "Santa" putting our gift under the tree. I was so excited I was sick!
The plaques on the wall behind the tree were painted by Mom in her ceramics class. I don't know where they are now - I don't remember having them when she passed away, but I had her sisters come in and take things they wanted, and those may have been among those things. I think they had flowers in the center. I don't know whose handprints are on the other wall, but I'll guess they were Randy's from preschool.

That wallpaper was supposed to look like wood panelling. I remember when Mom put that up. Didn't Phyllis help? Or maybe Jane, our neighbor. Anyway, Mom was always decorating, making our house a cozy home. That room had real wood floors that Mom would strip and wax every now and then. They covered those floors with carpet when they remodeled a few years later.
Tomorrow I'll show you what "Santa" brought us that year. It was probably the best gift we ever got. :o)

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Elfen sweetness

A few of my favorite Christmas elves:





Friday, December 07, 2007

Ice and snow, snow and ice

Just a few more photos from the ice last weekend, and the snow yesterday. It was a winter wonderland yesterday morning...





Sunday, December 02, 2007

Iceland, anyone?

Our first "winter storm" of the year turned out to be more rain and ice than anything else (though it is snowing lightly as I type this...).

The cherry tree in the back yard at 7:00 yesterday morning:
The magnolia tree in front at 8:00 this morning:
If you click on the photos they will enlarge - hopefully you can see the thickness of the ice. It really is pretty.