Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Holiday Celebrations and Memories - Part I

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

(Image courtesy of footnoteMaven ca 2008)

Join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him about your Christmases past.

Rev up the olde thynking cap and cue up the Mission Impossible music - your mission should you decide to accept it - keeping with the Christmas theme - is:

1)   Today's challenge is to share memories of December holiday gatherings and celebrations with your families (as a child, a young adult, a parent, a grandparent, a great-grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a nibling, a cousin, an in-law)!  

2)  Pick two or three questions from the list in my blog post:  Ask AI Gemini:  "What questions can I write about concerning family gatherings and celebrations during the December holidays?"  This is a new list of questions somewhat different from last year's list.

3)  Tell us about your memories of your holiday gatherings and celebrations in your own blog post, in a comment here, or on your Facebook page.  Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post.

Here's mine:

Question:  Where was the most memorable holiday gathering location (a specific house, town, or country)? Why did that location hold special significance?

Answer:  By far the most memorable holiday gathering location was my grandparents home at 825 Harbor View Place in San Diego, California.  We celebrated Christmas there from 1951 to the 1970s.  It had a fireplace for Santa to come down and a brick hearth (or apartment on 30th Street didn't have a fireplace, so this was magical!). It had a garage where my parents and grandparents could hide gifts away from curious and ingenious little boys.  

When  was a boy, my brother Stan and I would go snooping into the garage when the adults were busy preparing food or decorating, and try to findo ur Christmas presents. One year we found the bicycles that, on Christmas Day, said they were from "Santa Claus."  

My maternal grandmother would put us to bed in the spare bedroom, tell us the "Night Before Christmas" poem, and would lead us in singing Christmas carols until we fell asleep.  

Question:  How have your genealogical discoveries (e.g., finding a new cousin or a new ancestor's birthplace) influenced or changed your current holiday celebrations?

Answer:  My genealogical discoveries are pretty thin this year, but the family stories are overflowing becuae of my ABC Biography process and asking the AI tools to create family stories based on my research.  I will still thank by name each of my ancestors that I can recall by memory (I can get back thorugh the 4th great-grands now, and even back to my 9th great-grands in some lines) for their contribution to my DNA -- especially the ones I personally knew,  my parents and maternal grandparents.  As an example - I will thank my great-grandparents Henry Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer for making the decision to come to San Diego in 1887 on their honeymoon. And my father for coming to San Diego in 1940.  

I will also create one or more Christmas stories using AI about one or more of my ancestral families  at Christmas time.  Which family and year will I choose?  I haven't decided yet.  Stay tuned!

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