SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
I mentioned last time that I would like to describe Christmas decorations – both around the neighborhood, in our house (and others houses we’ve visited), and some of the decorations from years past at our growing-up house and our Aunt Jessie’s house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the decorations that our church does each year.
I started last week with the decorations my Mother did around our house, and then what our Aunt Jessie did at her house.
This week I would like to share some of the decorating I did for our house(s) that we’ve lived in.
The first four years of our marriage I don’t think I decorated at all – probably didn’t have either the funds for purchasing anything, or knowledge of how to apply what I saw in the stores and around the area. Seems like I remember taking a small magazine – Readers Digest size – and folding each page a couple of times in a certain way (I’ve forgotten now how I did it) to make it stand upright, then spray painting the whole thing green. I would then add very small ornaments on it, and call it a Christmas tree! Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that – only the memory.
So the first pictures I have of anything we did for decorations was when we were in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The building we lived in had a “competition” with other government buildings for decorations. This is our building in 1968 – everyone in our building had the same “form” and we added what we wanted in the middle. I made “Silver Bells” – cardboard bell shapes wrapped in aluminum foil. Kinda cute. Our apartment was the top left – at the end of the building.
This second picture is also in Wiesbaden, the following year, 1969 – our last Christmas in Wiesbaden. It’s a bit difficult to make out the window decoration, but it was a very simple design – sort of a star burst. I think the center was a paper doily, with “spokes” emanating from the center, with another paper doily at the end of each spoke and some “diamonds” between. Simple, but we liked it.
Here are another couple of pictures of Christmas morning in our apartment in 1969. Karen was just three years old here. You will see our little tree in the background on an end-table. And then another picture of the small gingerbread house we had. I don’t remember whether or not I made it or we bought it. But Karen thought it was a delight!
I don’t seem to have any pictures of decorations until 10 years later – 1979 – when we were in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I only have a few from there, but here they are. The six-plex we lived in was built on a hill, so we have a true “split level” house – lots of stairs, three bedrooms, two and one-half baths. Not too bad, but they were built very cheaply and were quite noisy and cold. In any case, here are some of the decorations we did there.
~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
Old Things R New 