Saturday, December 24, 2011

Advent Calendar - December 24: Christmas Eve

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This is the 24th of 24 posts for the 2011 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, a Geneablogger tradition.

On the first day before Christmas,
Anticipation was high
For Santa Claus was nigh!

1) How did you and your family spend Christmas Eve?

As a child, we always (that I recall) spent Christmas Eve at my grandparents house in Point Loma because they had a chimney. At a young age, I was always trying to figure out how Santa Claus could visit us in our apartment flat - and my parents tried to prevent questions by doing this. I'm sure my grandparents loved this, since my brother and I were their only grandchildren.

It was also a handy place to store toys and gifts for us before the holidays. We used to look everywhere in our house for them.Then one frosty Christmas Eve, (um, well, wrong adjective, but what the hey) my brother and I were exploring my grandparents' garage - and found two bicycles. Aha - if we get these tomorrow from Santa, then we will know for sure that Santa is really our parents. Sure enough, there they were on Christmas morning - marked from Santa!

But, being smart little boys, we just smiled at each other, and kept the secret for another year or so. After all, we now had a new little brother to watch over and have fun with.Christmas Eve day also included shopping - at least for me (covered on Day 6).

In my married life, when we were scheduled to fly to San Francisco on Christmas Day, we often had our Seaver family Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve with my parents, grandparents, cousin Dorothy and my brothers. This was always Christmas dinner, gift exchange, and family talk.

When we were in town, we went to church on Christmas Eve - when the kids were young, we usually went to the early service at 6 or 7 PM, and saw the Christmas Story, sang hymns, and had our candle light march (as I explained on Day 5).

In years when we travel to see our girls and their families, we usually leave several days before Christmas, spend two nights in Victorville, then arrive Christmas Eve day in Santa Cruz. This year, we are in Santa Cruz visiting our daughter and our two grandsons.

When the daughters and grandkids are here, there is the setting up and setting out of gifts on Christmas Eve while sugar plums dance in their heads, plus putting cookies and milk out for Santa, his elves and the reindeer.

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