Advent Calendar - Update on the Hilarious Christmas Tree

Nancy, Sandy, Mary and Susan '71

Hey all, my sister found a picture of us girls in Singapore in front of the hilarioius Christmas Tree from my previous post. I just had to share this with you all.

Have a glorious Christmas with many blessings, love, family and the true meaning of Christmas. Jesus came to this world to save us all!

Advent Calendar - Christmas Stockings

Christmas Stockings

Growing up us girls did not have Christmas Stockings. The only time I can think of that we had them was when we spent Christmas with my Dad's parents. (previous post)

When he was young and growing up my Dad remembers his Mother opening up her stocking on Christmas morning and pulling out hand held mixers and spatula's holding them high up in the air in excitement. Plus she had about 5 oranges she would pull out. They were good fillers. She would pull out other items Dad remember seeing in the kitchen. His Dad would pull tools out of his stocking. Funny.....

My boys however have grown up with stockings. Their first Christmas their Aunt cross stitched and embroidered beautiful stockings for them. They are still in use today and are now 26 and 23 years old. They hang every year and are packed away with the Christmas stuff.

Don't you love the photo above? It was taken from antiqueclipart.com They have some great clipart. Check them out!

Advent Calendar - December 17- No Christmas Tree?

Today I have the pleasure of a guest blogger. This is a story I remember my father telling me so I asked him if he would write it down for me and he did! I just love this true story and I hope you will too. It reminds us of Christmas's past. Thanks Dad. You're the best.

No Christmas Tree?

It was a December afternoon in 1936. Snow was on the ground in Atlanta, Georgia where I lived with my Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Ron. Christmas was but a few days off, and we did not yet have a Christmas tree.
Although I was but 4 years old at the time, and had little reason to consider it, I’m sure that the term “discretionary income” was an unknown figure of speech within our struggling-just-to-get-by depression era family. There was even some talk of our doing without a Christmas tree this year, the mere mention of which was totally unacceptable to my big brother of 12. Donning a jacket, he whispered to me, “Put your coat on! Let’s go. We’re gonna have a Christmas tree!” He looked wise and determined. I idolized my big bro, so without hesitation, I did as he said, and off we went.

“What’s under your jacket?” I asked as we headed down the alley away from the house. He unbuttoned it a little and revealed Dad’s hatchet tucked inside. “We are equipped!” he said. We made our way purposefully to scrubby woodland located about a quarter of a mile from the street we lived on. My brother had passed that way often when walking to and from his 6th grade classes.

“OK come this way,” Ron said, and I veered with him to the left off the main pathway. Shortly he looked in both directions before spreading the wires on a barbed wire fence to let me crawl through, I had a tinge of apprehension. But hey, this is my big brother, so what’s to fear? It’s gotta be OK, right?

We shuffled along through scrub pines and various bushes until my brother said, “Look, ain’t she a beauty?” And a beautiful fir tree it was—straight, erect, and symmetrically filled out. “It’s real pretty,” I said, but it’s too tall for our living room, isn’t it?” “Naw, it’s just right!” he assured me. Within a few minutes he had felled the tree, and he said, you take the small end and I’ll take the trunk end. He grunted and so did I. We quickly learned that a damp snow-covered Christmas tree weighs much more that we had imagined. “OK, so we’ll drag it,” my brother said. We both grabbed a hold and started dragging. By the time we got it off the property through a place where the fence was down, we were winded 3 times. By the time we got it home, we were totally spent.

“Where did this tree come from,” Dad asked. “Oh, over there someplace,” Ron replied with a vague gesture. I could see Dad seemed rather worried, but we soon proceeded to erect the tree, and after nailing some leveling slats to it, my brother said, “OK, now we’ve only got to cut those three feet off of the top where the ceiling bends it over.” That’s about when we heard a sharp knock on the front door.

Dad answered the door. We heard a man speaking loudly in an agitated manner. “I’m here to talk to you about a tree stolen from my property!” he said.

Dad invited him in. The upshot was that indeed the tree had come from private property, and our drag marks in the snow had led the owner right straight to our house. The fact that the property was not currently being used for any useful purpose was quite beside the point. He explained this terms not uncertain. Even my brother was beginning to get the point.

After venting his anger about the matter, however, he began to cool down a bit. Seeing the petrified looks on our scared faces probably helped. He then noticed that the tree was way oversized for the room and that its peak was bent over and pointing due north. He suddenly began to laugh, and finally he wished us all a merry Christmas. But upon departing, he raised an index finger with greatly assumed authority to us boys, saying, “Remember boys, you’d better check who owns the property before you cut any more trees!”
Actually, we boys stood well reminded of an excellent business lesson that Christmas. We also had the biggest tree on the block!

Melvin R. Lyon

Advent Calendar - Christmas at School

I wrote this article for my sister who was needing some articles for a project and thought it appropriate for today's theme. Christmas at School.

Christmas in Indonesia

By Mary Lyon Hellman

Just after celebrating my eighth birthday in December, 1963 I and my three sisters found it was Christmas time in Bandung, Indonesia. Wait a minute. THIS is not Christmas!! It was boiling hot and humid. We were clothed in ordinary shirts and shorts. No snow, no Christmas lights all around town or on our neighbors houses for that matter and not one Santa Claus in sight.

I remember our school having a Christmas program for all the missionary parents of the kids that attended which consisted of about 10 to 15 kids in grades 1-8. As we stood up front my eight year old voice projected just a tiny squeak. You see, I was thinking of the parents! Spending Christmas in a foreign land away from their parents or siblings, the old farm in Iowa or in South Dakota where snow and the sights and sounds of the season were in no shortage. Here we stood belting out Christmas songs in the heat of the humid evening as our parents looked on with admiration. My voice cracked because I was near tears for them! They must have been proud of us kids trying our best to make them feel at home.

The highlight of that Christmas was receiving boxes from our Grandparents from back home. How delighted we were at receiving brand new coloring books and crayons, and books like Black Beauty to read. How thoughtful of them to think of us so far away. The excitement of getting boxes of Jello and cake mixes was amazing. They were put aside for very special occasions.

My family made it thru that first year and continued through another year in Indonesia, two years in Japan where we had a white Christmas and six years in Singapore where we swam in the local pool every Christmas day. Our tree there was made out of white plastic with just a tiny tint of blue. We thought that was really cool.

These are my memories of Christmas’s in the mission field. I will remember these all the rest of my life.

December and the Miracle of Birth

I just cannot help but tell you about our new Grandson! He was born yesterday, December 13th in Berrien Springs, Michigan, to our Son Nathan and his beautiful wife Emily.

What a miracle birth is. Judah Samuel weighed 9 lb and 11 oz! What a big boy, my goodness.

Of course - here is a picture of Judah. We are celebrating life and all joy that comes with it. It is exciting I will be traveling there next month to give him Grandma hugs and kisses. What a special Christmas gift this year.

Super Sister Sunday - Christmas in Japan

Christmas Eve? Huh?

Before heading overseas my family always opened Christmas gifts on Christmas morning. Yes the memories come back to me as we tried to spy at what Grandma and Mom were doing in the bedroom on Christmas Eve. I especially remember one year when we just would not settle down and go to sleep. After we managed to actually see what Grandma and Mom were doing. They were making up our Christmas stockings! I was quite shocked actually and a little disappointed at that. Anyway we would try to look and then run back to bed as soon as we heard someone coming towards the door.

One time that same night, I managed to get back into bed before Nancy. Dad saw her and came over to her bed and this part really sticks out in my mind even today. She was silouetted with the light being behind her and Dad. Dad lifted up her legs to give her a swat on the bum and it was hilarious! She did not bend her legs! She looked like an ironing board, super stiff and super straight with her legs going way up into the air. One swat and no more ironing board. She promised Dad she would settle down. She finally did.

Back to the Christmas morning thing. When we moved to Japan, Nancy remembered the first Christmas we were there. On Christmas eve we went to neighboring American homes to visit them. We were shocked to see they were all opening their gifts! On Christmas eve! We quickly went home and did not visit any more of our friends.

So, the next Christmas we opened our gifts on Christmas eve and did that ever since.



The Lyon Sisters, 1964 Mary, Susan, Sandy and Nancy

Here we are in Japan with a very spindaly tree. It is awful! Of course did not notice at the time.

Advent Calendar - Other Traditions - Eggs!

My mother was proud of her Swedish Heritage. Her grandparents came to Iowa from Sweden in 1890.

At Christmas time and for special occasions Mom remembered her mother making coffee at Christmas, brewed in Swedish tradition with eggshells to achieve a silky appearance. The eggshells were put directly into the coffee grounds.

I do not recall any other traditions in the family.

Happy Holidays