Flashback Friday: Christmas, 80s style

 Merry Christmas from 1986-1989

Christmas at the Syme house was a noisy affair. There were 10 of us, after all. As daylight ended outside, inside our house came alive. Candlelight dinner of turkey and mashed potatoes on my mom's Christmas tablecloth. Snitching the hand-dipped chocolates we made the day before. Then we scavaged the house for costumes to wear for the nativity. Bathrobes, tinsel, towels, ties, wrapping paper tubes.  We drew names between the 10 of us. It was common knowledge who had who. I only ever knew what I got my person but it seemed like everyone knew what I was getting.

We didn't open these presents until after the nativity and sometimes it made the nativity portion a chore. My dad could never remember where the account was in the bible (Luke 2) or where to turn to find the account of the wisemen (Matthew 2). Whatever part I had, usually the angel, it felt like a lot of waiting at first or at the end of the reading. 

It was tradition not to sleep in your own room that night, at least for me. A few of us usually ended up in Julie's room. It was so hard to go to sleep and even harder to stay asleep. Is it time yet? Once we woke up and came to the living room, it still took forever for my parents to mosey on in.For a few years, Santa's presents were wrapped in white paper.  A large pile of white presents for a family of 10 was a magical sight. 

(Six-month-old Thomas was not too cooperative as the baby Jesus.)

This is the only turtleneck I ever owned. Not a fan. Opening presents was a free-for-all. I heard of friends who's parents made them take turns. Could you imagine waiting for 9 people to open a present before you got to open another one? We'd be opening presents until lunch time! "Mom, look waht Santa brought me!" I laugh about that now. 

I don't think there was a bigger deal than the year we got a VCR. We had a camcorder that used VHS tapes so we could replay our home movies on that. At Macey's in Logan you could rent movies and a VCR and we did that a few times and it was amazing! The idea you could watch the movie of your choosing at any time was crazy! Think about it, until then you were at the mercy of what came on television. But the year we got a VCR we just about all fainted. There's a home video somewhere with someone shouting "It even has a remote!" The Symes were good kids that year.

I love this for reals tree. It looks a lot like my tree this year.

This tree in the living room was all white. In the basement was our fake tree with Winnie the Pooh ornaments. Only a couple of those ornaments survive and I have them! 

Do you ever see a picture of your old clothes and you remember exactly how they felt wearing them? I can tell you about the elastics at the end of the sleeves, the feel of the criss-cross stitching on the chest. There's a single button on the back that I never did up because I couldn't do it myself and I didn't want it done up because then I'd have to find someone to undo it in the morning.

The rest of Christmas day was spent eating cereal for breakfast, playing with toys, playing games, not getting dressed, eating leftover turkey on rolls, and playing outside if there was snow.