Happy New Year!

This is another of the post cards from Aunt Christan. This card was never used and there is no date.

Kelley Family Reunion December 1984

Getting back to some genealogy! In December 1984 the Kelley family had a reunion at the Chattanooga Valley Baptist Church. I'm sure the reunion was inspired by the Joel Kelley book which was published in September of that year. There was  a crowd of Kelley cousins. Everywhere we looked Dad was introducing us to a cousin. He was so happy to see all of his cousins, many he had not seen in years. We all felt that there would be many reunions to come, however, sadly that was the one and only reunion.

Dad and my Aunts talked about going to the Kelley family reunion in Bradley County, Tn when they were kids. I'm not sure if they still have a reunion there now.

Somehow the day of the Chattanooga Valley Kelley reunion our family forgot to take cameras. I remember one of the cousins took pictures of each family group. I remember Dad called the cousin several times and offered to send money to have an extra set of pictures developed for him. He always wanted copies of those pictures, but never got them.  I would love to have copies of those pictures. Maybe someday a Kelley cousin who was at the December 1984 Kelley Family Reunion at the Chattanooga Valley Baptist Church will find this blog and contact me and e-mail pictures. What a great day that would be!

The Cats Enjoy Christmas Too!

Starsky enjoys his Christmas gift!

Bentley likes his fish too!

Birds in the Snow!

Another view of our Christmas Day snow. The bird seed kept getting covered with snow.



Merry Christmas from Tennessee!

We had a beautiful White Christmas!

The first in many years.

December 21,1985 - Our Special Day

December 21, 1985

Our Wedding Day

December 21, 2010 marks our 25th Anniversary

Earliest Christmas Memory

My earliest Christmas memory was when I was about 4 years old. I don't remember all the details. I think my Mom was finishing up some baking and wanted my brother and I to get ready for bed. Remember how hard it was to sleep on Christmas Eve? My Dad came into the room and said he was going outside because he heard someone in the driveway. He came back in with a gift for me and one for my brother. He said that Santa was just checking to make sure we were going to bed on time. Santa gave him the gifts since we had been good all year but we had better get to bed, if we wanted him to leave the rest of our gifts when he came back. We got ready and went to bed.
I can't remember what my brother got but I do remember my gift. It was a gun and holster. The holster was black with white trim and a silver star, I'm pretty sure I still have it packed away somewhere. The gun I don't remember very well, I guess it broke as most toy guns do.
I guess that I enjoyed playing cowboys with my brother. Mom has a picture of us, my brother had a cowboy hat and gun and I had my gun and holster and a doll. I remember the doll except I remember her differently!
In the picture she has beautiful curly hair, in my memory she has no curls and almost no hair. You see I cut her hair! I thought her hair would grow back as mine did when Mom cut it. I remember crying when mom said that the doll's hair wouldn't grow back. I played with her anyway, and loved her. I was so sorry I had cut her beautiful hair.

Christmas Tree and Starsky

When  I wrote about our pets at Christmas a few days ago, I said we weren't sure what our new cats would do with the Christmas tree. Well as you can see Starsky likes the tree. He is so sweet and gentle, he didn't knock anything off the tree. This picture looks so much like the pictures of Jaguar under the tree. It seemed so natural for him to go under the tree and it seemed natural to us seeing a cat under our tree.

Bentley hasn't bothered the tree - Yet!

Christmas 1994

I've always loved this picture of my Dad holding my kids.

Dec. 1994

Holiday Parties

I can't remember our family having holiday parties, just the family get together for Christmas. There were always Christmas parties at church and school which were fun. Except  that I can remember one year at school the person who got my name didn't get me a gift. I had been so excited buying a gift for the person who's name I had and then I didn't get anything. Mom told me it was probably because the child's parents didn't have the money to buy even a small gift. Which I'm sure is the reason most schools don't allow gift exchanges. It was sad but, I survived.
The holiday parties which come to mind most are the ones from the company my husband worked for when our children were small. They had a company Christmas party on the first Saturday of December. It was on Saturday morning and it was for the children of the employees. They had Christmas shows to watch, crafts to make, snacks to eat and the best part for the kids was at the very end. Santa came and let every kid set in his lap. Our kids looked forward to the party! We have pictures somewhere!

More Information on the Use of Xmas

I posted a Christmas postcard from the early 1900's a few days ago and it said Happy xmas. I know every year we hear don't take Christ out of Christmas. I must say here I believe in Christ and I write Christmas, so I don't want anyone to get mad at me. I remembered a few years ago reading on the internet about the meaning of xmas. I couldn't find what I read a few years ago but this link does give us some history to xmas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas
In some cases yes, people are taking Christ out of Christmas in other cases I think people are lazy and don't want to write it out. But when we look at things from the early 1900's and read about xmas being used for a thousand years maybe we should realize past generations knew more than we do.

Xmas" is a common abbreviation of the word "Christmas". It is sometimes pronounced /ˈɛksməs/, but it, and variants such as "Xtemass", originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation, /ˈkrɪsməs/. The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for "mass",[1] while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ". copied from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas


Just something to think about. I'm keeping Christ in Christmas but I can see where this originated.

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Memories

Our family Dec. 2003, my son was in the wedding of some friends from church.

Christmas Postcard - From Great Great Grandma

If you would like to read some wonderful Christmas memories follow this link Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. I haven't linked my Christmas memories since I wasn't sure how many I would be able to do, and I might not get them posted on the right days.

 Saturday was Christmas Cards- I remembered this very special Christmas card which I am proud to have. It's a Christmas postcard.

I thought it was interesting that the card says

A Happy Xmas. I think the post mark is 1912, it is

hard to tell. This is a card from Janette Farrell to

her grand daughter Christan Ziegler. Janette died

January 13, 1913.

Santa Claus

This newspaper clipping was from a New Mexico newspaper, my mother's cousin saw it in the paper and mailed it to me. My kids had their picture made with this Santa that year. As I remember he was a very good Santa.

My son was 16 months and daughter was almost 4 years old.

Outdoor Christmas Decorations

 2009

2007

Growing up we didn't have any outdoor decorations at Christmas. My children inspired us to have outdoor decorations. When they were very young they enjoyed looking at the Christmas lights when we were out after dark. It first started with my daughter and then my son, when we saw how much they enjoyed the Christmas lights we would make at least a couple of trips out just to see the lights. As soon as they spotted the lights both would call out "pretty and gorgeous". It was so cute!
Then when my son got a little older he asked why we didn't have any outdoor decorations. So we would buy a few each year after Christmas. My husband and son would put them up each year. My son does most of the outdoor decoration now and my daughter does most of the inside. It is so nice that they want to decorate.

Christmas 1980

left to right - Granny, PaPa, and Aunt Christan

Christmas 1980 so long ago, Granny died in March 1981 and PaPa died Nov. 1981 so this was their last Chrismas. I still miss them both.

Pets and Christmas

Rusty

Christmas 1978

my dog before I married

Fluffy

Christmas 2003

Jaguar

Christmas 2003

Sweet Jaguar always got under (or in the tree) as soon as it went up as if to pose for her annual Christmas photo.

Fluffy

Christmas 2009

Fluffy was very sick during Christmas last year.

She enjoyed her Christmas present.

This year we don't have our tree up yet, I know we need to get busy. We aren't sure how our two new cats will react to a Christmas tree. Starsky will probably hide and Bentley may just pull the tree down.

It will be fun to see what happens!

First Christmas 1958

This is my brother and I in December 1958.

I was 4 months old and he was almost 4 years old.

Christmas In The Early 1950's

Adults across the back - Mom, Dad, Aunt Agnes (Grandmother's sister), Granny, Aunt Gin, Uncle Bill, and Aunt Mildred
in chairs left Ted (Aunt Agnes's husband) and PaPa
kids Kathy, Linda, Martha
Picture taken and developed by Ziggie.
I think the picture was made in the early 1950's probably 1952 or 1953. You can just barely see the tree behind the adults.

Remember These Christmas Trees?

This picture was made sometime in the 1970's at my Aunt's house. She had this Christmas tree for YEARS!

and who is that young thin girl?