Fun Friday from the Files

Christmas Traditions and Man, Look at that Grin!

As I always do when December hits, I’ve been thinking about family traditions. Which ones do I love, which ones do I want to tweak this year to fit the changes in our lives, and which ones ones do I remember fondly, but DEFINATELY don’t want to repeat any more?

My family has always celebrated Christmas here in the U.S. and my mother loved this season so very much. We did the holidays pretty big growing up, and even though I have some sweet, wonderful ‘traditional’ memories, I also have some ‘adventure’ stories when traditions went south in a big way. Those traditions turned into a memory of just laughing at ourselves and each other in holiday glee.

And a classic holiday tradition is the family photo. I absolutely love photos swamping the social feeds of families recreating an earlier photo! All of my favorite photos are of Christmas, and out they come to be scattered about the house with the decorations, so I’ve been looking at them again.

I’m working on my Christmas story for a very special ProjectKin Speaker’s Corner next week about my best Christmas ever. Please join in if you can!

All of that sent me to my files and searching Christmas photos to share. I had fun looking through the years, and I hope you enjoy seeing Little Me here.

My First Christmas

Don’t let the bright FisherPrice rings and big smile fool you, my favorite toy that year was a laundry basket.

Kyla Ogle, Tatum, New Mexico. Quite the baby doll.

I believe the next photo was taken the year I was in kindergarten, and several of our family traditions are visible and evidently in place by then. Always the same type of tree and the same type of decorations, we always stacked the presents the same up the walls, and there were always the big plastic stocking with candy inside, the giant round peppermint stick and the huge oranges and apples. You can’t hardly tell, but there’s a real coconut there too just for me, and in later years of larger stockings, it would always be down at the toe of mine. And yes, those are curlers in my hair, very 70s.

And by now, you probably can recognize that “CHEESE” grin

Ah polaroids. A little washed out and somewhat blurry, but still me and the tree, below. The giant stack of presents are out of the photo, but there’s the classic tree, icicles and cheese face. A slinky and pixie sticks for gifts, very classic of that year, and I loved both so much.

I had fun looking through and searching for these photos, and thinking about sweet times and how much my family spoiled me.

I hope you enjoy seeing Little Me here, and hearing my memory stories.

Your turn:

Do you have good memories of having holiday photos or was it a nightmare?

What holiday traditions do you love and which ones are you glad got dropped from your family gatherings?

Reference info:

Kyla Ogle Bayang, at the home of Oma and Peggy Ogle, Christmases 1967, 1974 and 1979.

Photos all part of the Ogle Family Collection, cured and digitized by Kyla herself. You may download, copy and share if you like, but please include proper citation with use.