Traditionally my small city has had their 4th of July fireworks display on July 3rd, and this year was no exception. The reasons they have it on July 3rd instead of the 4th is because they can hire a crew to set off the fireworks more cheaply than on the actual 4th of July, or so the theory goes…
This year’s firework display was awesome too, but not just because of the fireworks display itself (although it was fine), but rather because of the location we decided to watch them from. This year we went to a small field that was packed with the people from our small city and once again the feeling of a Normal Rockwell scene popped in my mind (read about my Halloween experience that was Norman Rockwell like too).
There were families and a lot of teenage kids in the field. A baseball game was still in session about a half an hour before the fireworks show began. Someone was cooking on a grill off to the side, and across the street, the local city ice cream stand was packed to the gill. There was a steady stream of people bustling to their friends houses that live close to the fireworks show, and a close bar was playing some tunes outside. The bar owner was cooking stuff on the grill too!
Our kids were running trying to catch lighting bugs (or fireflies), jumping, darting quickly then stopping, pawing at the air as if they were kitten playing with dangling string. It’s always comic to watch, especially my daughter who is 7 years old, she’s almost to watch. The as suddenly as their lighting bug quest started, it ended in a sudden game of tag.
After the fireworks display, the kids lit some sparklers and swirled them around laughing and running around. It was a feel good moment that happens even now and then.
We all had a great time, and now it’s off to bed after a busy day!
Those in the U.S. hope your 4th of July is a great one!
I hope my daughter won’t be too disappointed! Her big Christmas gift in her list to Santa was to visit his workshop!!!
My clever wife told my daughter, even if Santa did take her to his workstop, she wouldn’t remember because Santa would make her forget. Afterall, the location of the workshop needs to be a secret!!!
I have certain adult family members that get upset if they only get 1 present. These same people also complains if they get a lot of (in one family member’s words) small junky stuff.
As an adult, I really don’t care if I get a Christmas gift or not. It’s nice, but 1 Christmas gift per relative is more than enough for me. Heck, a Christmas card from the adults in my family is more than enough for me. One of the biggest reasons I do like to get 1 gift from each family member is because my kids ask why I didn’t get more presents… But 1 present from each family couple is plenty!
Know that just because I don’t really want Christmas presents doesn’t mean I don’t want to get them for other adults (especially my younger, adult sister).
To me, Christmas gift giving is more for the kids. To them, each gift still has that magic quality, especially those presents brought by Santa Claus!
As a small child, I remember waking up around 6:00am excited to go down and rip open packages! The beginning of Christmas morning was always so exciting! But even as a kid, I remember getting tired of opening packages after a while!
So now for me at the current point in my life, Christmas presents are much more of a chore than something to look forward too. With some of my other family members though, it’s almost a competition! I do get a lot of pleasure out of watching my kids open their presents though!
Do you still exchange presents with other adult family members? If so, how many presents do you exchange?
Presents, Bah Humbug!
-MR Scrooge (lol)
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Today, I’m going to travel back in time to talk about the Christmas experiences that my grandmother told me about her childhood growing up during “The Great Depression“. Now granted, she was about 4 years at the time The Great Depression started, but she had an iron trap memory, and I think it’s a story worth telling.
Let me start by saying upfront, that stories like the one I’m about to tell you helped formed my frugal habits in life.
Shortly after my grandmother was born, tragedy struck! While driving a dog to friends in Pennsylvania, her dad got stuck on the railroad tracks and was hit and killed by a train. Back then life was different, there wasn’t any government aid to help my grandmother’s mother in cases like this!
So my grandmother really didn’t know much about her dad, all that she told me was that he was a typical middle manager in some manufacturing plant of some sort. But after he died, it didn’t take long for the money that they had to save to evaporate quickly with time…
My grandmother’s mom eventually got a job cleaning houses in which all four kids would help out. It was a hard life from the beginning for my grandmother and her three siblings (2 girls and 1 boy).
Christmas was an especially hard time for the family. They didn’t have any money, and I’ve never heard of any mention of a Christmas Tree in my grandmother’s childhood (I do remember her mentioning Christmas stockings though).
Being the curious kid that I was, I’d ask my grandmother what she got for Christmas. And she would explain to me how instead of gifts, they might get a piece of fruit (an orange), or a piece of candy (no chocolate though). Once she told me that she got a ball and jacks. And another Christmas, she got clothes made from an old drapery that one of the clients that her mom work for was throwing out (the older kids hated these she said, but she didn’t mind so much). This was special because the material of the drapes was an expensive type of material…
Now you might think that she was singing the blues to me, but when I told her how I thought that was horrible, and she said that it really wasn’t, and that’s just how it was back then!
If you were to watch TV, sad music would be playing and the kids would all have glum faces as they come down for Christmas to their nonexistent Christmas tree (no Grinch to have a change of heart and save the day in this story) and they would shed a tear or two, feeling pity for themselves.
But it was never that bad! She said that they would sing and enjoy each other’s company. There was great strength in their family because they knew the world dealt them a bad hand, but they were determined to make the best of it.
I guess that may be why I sometimes route for the underdog and have the Lemons to Lemonade category on my blog…
Being an adult now, I think she sugar-coated it at least a little so I wouldn’t be depressed at Christmas. I’m sure she felt the bitterness and envy that comes with being a smart but poor kid at Christmas. But instead of hating the holiday, she made it one of her favorites! She truly was a brilliant and excellent teacher in my life!
After she was married and had kids, perhaps this is the reason why Christmas was always over the top for her and she tried to make it a great experience for her kids and grandchildren. Her presentation of Christmas was the closest I’ve ever been to experiencing something magical as a child. Not just for the tree and gifts! She would play her organ and have the kids sing Christmas songs.
Perhaps this is also the reason that I put my kids first, and want them to have a step up in life, both personally and financially level.
Thanks for letting me share a bit of my family history and hardships,
MR
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