This photo (like all of the others on this page) has no date or description, but I think it’s a Christmas dinner. We’re using Grandma’s fancy dishes and glasses, so it’s not just an ordinary meal. There are little Christmas trees on the table, and there’s a Christmas wreath on the wall. There’s no ‘theme’ centerpiece like there would be for a birthday.

Christmas present time at Grandma and Grandad’s house. Someone is opening a present – maybe it was me! – and everyone is tuned in to watch.

This is a New Years’ night event – our family candle tradition – in the breakfast room at Grandma and Grandad’s house. This is probably New Years’ 1956, since Sue is not yet with us and Peggy is about a year old. Everyone has a single candle in front of them. Note that the candle is placed in some sort of tasty dessert – a detail that has disappeared from our tradition some time in the last 60 years.

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to go to a family party. We would all gather at someone’s house – usually Grandma and Grandad’s house on Scenic Dr., but sometimes at Aunt’s house on Sunrise Dr. and, on occasion, at our house on Davista Dr.

I loved those parties. We had wonderful food, and sometimes there were presents, and in our younger years we would sometimes play games together, like “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

At Christmas we would always celebrate with my dad’s family at Grandma and Grandad’s house. All the rest of the year we’d gather in the breakfast room or in the family room, but Christmas was always in the living room. We’d sit on chairs and floor around the perimeter of the room, and the tree would be over in the corner, by the window. The presents would start under the tree but they didn’t stop there; there were so many they’d spread out across the floor. We didn’t draw names; everybody gave a present to everyone else, and we kids received lots of presents from our parents and grandparents. It was a huge blessing, but of course we kids didn’t know that – to us it was normal and expected.

In fact there were so many presents for us kids that they had to be ranked. Each of us had one present that was called our “main,” and that one had to wait until near the end of the gift-opening session. I guess the idea was to build anticipation and keep us in line. If somebody picked out a “main” gift too early and tried to deliver it to its intended recipient, the cry would go up “That’s his MAIN!” and back it would go under the tree.

Christmas at Grandma and Grandad’s house was completely governed by Grandma’s rules, like the one about the “main.” Another important rule was that each gift had to be appreciated by everyone. Only one gift at a time was to be opened, and everybody else had to stop talking, or stop playing with their new toys, and watch the person open the gift. When the gift was finally revealed, it was to be held up in the air and shown to everyone, and passed around the room for examination if possible. If the gift was edible, everyone got to try a bite. Of course this meant that Christmas gift opening lasted a LONG time. Not everybody liked that.

After Grandad’s death in 1963 we would usually call a halt in the middle of the gift-opening session and go up to the cemetery (it was on top of the Whittier hills) to his grave, to put fresh flowers there and remember him. Then we’d all go back and continue with the gifts.