2019 Christmas Tree Story – The Seen Family Way

Remember what we forgot…

Do you remember being a kid and feeling the magic of Christmas arrive at your home the moment the Christmas decorations were in the lounge room ready to go up on the tree?

What beautiful memories!! If I am honest, I still feel a pit of excitement and thrill in the bottom of my stomach when I think back to those moments with my family.  Christmas traditions were BIG… HUGE… in my family.  It was the one time in the year that our parents would take time off.  Between Christmas Eve and the first week of January, they had a few weeks off.  The celebrations would start with Mum buying a new tree and decorations every year (that was her thing)… We would head to the red room and assemble the tree, then add the lights, and then hang the decorations, place the tinsel and have a whole lot of fun doing it!! What I remember the most, was how much fun my mum had watching us do it, and doing it with us.  It was always a special day… Then in the evening, it would be an event to put the lights on and just sit and admire the tree.  The next day, the tree would always look a bit different, after Mum had redecorated a bit, but it always held pride of place.  The magic of Christmas had been unleashed in our home.

Then would come the trips on Friday nights up to the Central Market so Mum could buy oodles and oodles of Christmas nuts and lollies.  Years before, she had mad ceramic Father Christmases’ that could hold the nuts and lollies, and they would be place all around our home… and then, then the summer fruits.  Apricots, peaches and plums – all the stone fruits.  She loved eating them, and we had bowls full of them.

My sister and I would search for the gifts – and always found them in my dad’s closet… but the big surprises, we wouldn’t know until Christmas morning.

On Christmas Eve, we would head down to either the Semaphore or Glenelg sideshow as a little family.  Getting squished by our parents on the Cha Cha, and winning prizes on the ducks, and listening to dad sing the most out of tune Christmas Carols, where he would make up his own verses.

And then Christmas morning – oh the joy of opening up the doors to see present after present littered under that beautiful tree.  Dad would be behind the old video camera, and mum would sit on the couch and listen to us tell her what he had brought us.  I remember actually really seeing the magic of Christmas one year when my little sister, who was about three at the time, dressed in just her undies, open a present that she really wanted, looked up to the sky, and with such excitement, said “thank you Father Christmas”.  The joy in the moment always surprises me when I think back onto it.

We would then take all our presents upstairs, make our bed, and place each item on the bed in a great display… that way we could come back throughout the day and remind ourselves of our loot and pick something new to play with.

Lunch was always at our house.  Aunts and Uncles from both sides of the family would come over.  There would be prawns and crayfish to start, of course with the secret seafood sauce home-made recipe.  Followed by roast lamb, beef, chickens, ham, and salads galore… Grandma used to make the Christmas Pudding with the thruppence and pennies, and Nan would make rum balls and white xmas…

Then we would swim and play and fend for ourselves with left overs for the next few days… Always such happy memories.  Such memories of what home was, or means to me.

The Seeny Way – 2019

This sweet little family are the Seen’s.  Mumma Seen is my baby sister, and her little family consist of her husband Jez, and my two sweet little rascal nephews.  My sister loves loves loves the traditions of Christmas. She spoils those sweet boys rotten, and she and Jez bring in the magic of Christmas with the Putting up of the Christmas Tree.

When we were kids, Christmas was the event of the year!! It was huge.  The magic was bought into the house when we put up the tree on the 1^st of December.  We had so many different traditions with different people in our family, from who made the xmas pudding, the rum balls, the large amount of summer stone fruits, nuts… I means NUTS, we had some many nuts at Christmas.  And our parents were at home. Would come for a swim. Watch movies with us.  It was a series of magic moments.

Our parents have passed on, but my sisters and I often find ourselves saying “Do you remember that time…” and we share a memory of being kids and seeing our mum and dad wrapped up in the Christmas excitement.  Thankfully we have a few videos of some of those moments.

Below are some sweet little memories for my sister and her family to have in years to come…

Pulling out the decorations and finding a baby faced picture that the kids made at kindy, or the hand plaster casts my sister made for her boys when they were one and two.  Who gets to hang the pictures of Grandma Carol and Grandpa Bruce. Putting on the star.  Placing all the present under the tree.  Showing Charlie the dog which present is his… and the new tradition of welcoming Elf.

I love the looks on their faces! I love the random cuddles. The random laughter.  A little bit of everyday bickering… and to see them light up with Christmas Magic…getting ready for a month of fun and joy and play and rest…

I  hope in years to come, they will be able to think back on to these times of putting up the tree, and share with their own little families, the special little traditions that came from the Seeny Christmas.

Remember what we forgot….